Months before the Ukraine invasion, Putin sent Biden some gifts

Personal gift-giving can be a revealing tool in foreign diplomacy since it frequently reveals the characteristics of both the donor and the recipient.

Months before the Ukraine invasion, Putin sent Biden some gifts

At their first presidential summit in Geneva in 2021, during a brief warming in ties that ended with Putin's invasion of Ukraine eight months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented Joe Biden with a $12,000 pen and beautiful writing set. The writing set was the most expensive present from a foreign leader that year that Biden received. It was characterised as a "Kholuy lacquer miniature workshop desk writing set and pen" in an annual report from the Office of the Chief of Protocol at the State Department.

The gift-giving took place during a 2.5-hour summit in Geneva in June 2021, which is now remembered as a turning point in US-Russian ties before they sank with Putin's invasion of Ukraine a year ago.Biden gave Putin a pair of his signature aviator sunglasses and a glass sculpture of an American bison, according to the White House at the time, but neither the White House nor the Kremlin revealed what Putin received.

According to the report, which lists presents from foreign countries to federal employees, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy presented Biden a US flag in 2021 that is thought to be worth $700.

Personal gift-giving can be a revealing tool in foreign diplomacy since it frequently reveals the characteristics of both the donor and the recipient.Foreign leaders courted Donald Trump's government with presents like a Louis Vuitton golf bag from the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, and a gold-framed painting of Trump from the then-prime minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

A Dupont fountain pen from Macron, a solar watch from a former Swiss president named Guy Parmelin, and a pen picture of Biden's childhood home from a former German chancellor named Angela Merkel are among the presents made public in Biden's first report.Biden received a portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II from her.

Maybe the most generous gifter was former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who sent Biden two dog bowls, two wool blankets, a ceramic cup and mug set, a fountain pen and a bottle of Oxford blue ink, as well as a picture of an Edinburgh Frederick Douglass mural.The majority of gifts are given to the National Archives and Records Administration for storage because they belong to the US government and not the recipient. Though there are certain exceptions: In order to cover the cost of the presents he received from Pope Francis, including a bas-relief of a migrant mother and child, Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned the government $1,457.

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