And with relations back nearing Cold War levels (they had both conceded as much) a tête-à-tête was needed.
Given the state of things and the context of the unpredictable diplomacy of Donald Trump, the possibility of a diplomatic incident was there.
Indeed when news filtered out that there had just been two sessions, not the three that were planned, and that the meetings had ended ahead of schedule, we wondered: Was this a sign that talks had broken down?
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We were hastily called into the first of the two news conferences – the Russian one.
Mr Putin’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in the room, a sign that his boss would soon follow. Did he look downbeat, angry? I couldn’t tell.
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But then President Putin took to the podium.
Within moments he had announced the nations’ respective ambassadors would be reinstalled in their host capitals.
This represents the beginning at least of the resumption of the mechanics of diplomacy. An achievement.
Then came further positive language.
Mr Putin’s “overall assessment” was that there was “no hostility”.
“On the contrary, our meeting took place in a constructive spirit. Both sides expressed intention to understand each other,” Mr Putin said.
On cyber security, he said: “We agreed on consultations in this respect.”
They may just be words but they are valuable in a relationship so strained.
The Russian president revealed the two leaders talked about their families. “It shows his qualities and moral values,” the translator quoted Mr Putin as saying.
There were clearly more tense exchanges in their meetings. Mr Biden had, the Russian president revealed, brought up human rights and the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Here, Mr Putin deflected, with a spot of ‘whataboutism’, drawing comparisons with the jailed protesters from the January storming of the US Capitol in Washington DC and the enduring existence of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
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No hostility with Biden meeting – Putin
President Biden watched all this on screens from another corner of the park on the shores of Lake Geneva before taking to his own podium.
And again, the language was positive.
It wasn’t, Mr Biden said, a “kumbaya moment”. No hugging or anything but “when was the last time two heads of state talked for two hours?”
There is, he said “no substitute for face-to-face dialogue. We share a responsibility between two strong and powerful countries. I told him I am not against Russia or anyone else. I’m for the American people”.
He said he had delivered three key points. First, practical measures to advance mutual interests, second, the importance of communication, and third, the ability to lay out US values.
The “tone was good”. The talks were “positive”. There “wasn’t any strident action taken… Where we disagreed we stated it”. Nothing was done in a “hyperbolic way”.
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‘I don’t think he’s looking for a Cold War’
But neither leader was remotely effusive. After all, their world views are profoundly different and there was never any expectation that would change with this meeting.
It was about creating a more stable, predictable relationship where they can at least understand and control their disagreements as well as the fallout.
“This is not about trust. This is about self interest and verification of self interest,” Mr Biden said.
They had always played down this meeting as just the first stage of rebuilding dialogue.
And it was precisely that. There was no Trump-style drama, no diplomatic moments.
A little dull then, but that’s no bad thing for a relationship which can be so perilous.
Hundreds of homes have been damaged and nearly 10,000 are without power after a tornado smashed through parts of Omaha, in the US state of Nebraska.
A number of tornadoes were reported in the state but the worst hit the suburbs to the northwest of the city, which has a population of 485,000.
The homes damaged were mostly in the Elkhorn area, police said, and emergency workers were going door-to-door to help people trapped in the debris.
Elkhorn residents Pat and Kim Woods said they took shelter when the tornado was about 200 yards away.
“We could hear it coming through,” Mr Woods said.
“When we came up, our fence was gone and we looked to the northwest and the whole neighbourhood’s gone.”
Mrs Woods added: “The whole neighbourhood just to the north of us is pretty flattened.”
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But while some homes in the area were destroyed, others appeared untouched.
There were no reports of deaths but a number of people suffered minor injuries, according to Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer, who added: “People had warnings of this and that saved lives.”
One of the other tornados passed through parts of Eppley Airfield, the city’s airport, which was closed for almost an hour.
Passengers were sent to storm shelters, according to Omaha Airport Authority Chief Strategy Officer Steve McCoy.
The terminal was not affected but other airport buildings “sustained damage”.
The airport has now reopened, although flight delays are expected late into Friday.
The tornado then crossed the Missouri River into Iowa, where damage reports are still coming through.
Daniel Fienhold, who owns a steakhouse in Crescent, Iowa, said he watched the weather from outside with his daughter and employees.
“It started raining, and then it started hailing, and then all the clouds started to kind of swirl and come together, and as soon as the wind started to pick up, that’s when I headed for the basement, but we never saw it,” he said.
Three workers at an industrial plant were injured when another tornado struck near the Nebraska city of Lincoln on Friday afternoon.
The building collapsed with around 70 people inside and several had to be rescued from the debris.
The weekend is not likely to bring any relief – The Weather Service has issued tornado watches across parts of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.
Student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza continue to spread across the US, following last week’s arrest of more than 100 demonstrators at Columbia University.
There have been nearly 550 protest-related arrests in the past week at major US universities, according to a tally by news agency Reuters.
The students want universities to cut ties with companies helping Israel’s war in Gaza and, in some cases, with Israel itself.
Some universities have called in police to end the demonstrations, resulting in clashes and arrests, while others appear to be biding their time as the academic semester enters its final days.
The University of Southern California cancelled its main graduation ceremony, set for 10 May, after the arrests of 93 people at the Los Angeles campus on Wednesday.
At Boston’s Emerson College, 108 people were arrested overnight with video showing students linking arms to resist officers, who then moved forcefully through the crowd, throwing some students to the ground.
Student protester Ocean Muir said: “There were just more cops on all sides.
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“It felt like we were being slowly pushed in and crushed.”
She said police lifted her by her arms and legs to carry her away and she was charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct.
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At Emory University’s Atlanta campus, 28 people were detained and the local branch of activist group Jewish Voice For Peace said police used tear gas and tasers on protesters.
Police there admitted using “chemical irritants” but denied using rubber bullets.
Cheryl Elliott, Emory’s vice president for public safety, said the aim was to clear the area of a “disruptive encampment while holding individuals accountable to the law” but human rights groups questioned the “apparent use of excessive force” against free speech.
Charges were dropped, meanwhile, against 46 of the 60 people detained by police at the University of Texas.
At Indiana University Bloomington, police with shields and batons shoved into a line of protesters, arresting 33 people.
At City College of New York, police officers retreated from protests, to cheers from the hundreds of students gathered on the lawn on the Harlem campus.
At California State Polytechnic University in Humboldt, students have been barricaded in a campus building since Monday, with staff trying to negotiate.
At University of Connecticut one protester was arrested and tents torn down, while protests continued at Stanford University and the New Jersey campus of Princeton University.
Police cleared tents and arrested more than 100 people last week but students put the tents up again in an area where graduation ceremonies will be held in a few weeks.
The administration has given protesters until Friday to leave.
There have been accusations that some pro-Palestinian protesters have harassed or abused Jewish students but protesters blame outsiders trying to infiltrate and malign their movement.
Protest leaders admit there has been abuse directed at Jewish students but insist the protests are not antisemitic.
Some of the universities have seen counter-protests from Israel supporters.
The hearing at the Supreme Court concerned the 6 January riots, election subversion and Trump’s alleged involvement. It is a crime against democracy, at the serious end of the legal jeopardy he faces.
His lawyers argued he should be shielded by immunity from prosecution for what he did while acting as president.
The prosecution’s case is that he was acting as a private citizen, not in an official capacity.
Trump wasn’t present at the hearing in Washington DC, but he will have liked what he heard.
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The prevailing legal assessment is that discussions with the nine-judge panel indicate that, while they didn’t necessarily agree with his argument for immunity, they have enough questions to delay the prosecution further.
A majority appear to think that presidents have some immunity from criminal prosecution for their official actions, even if the exact parameters are unclear.
What is clear is that if the trial court is instructed to determine which of Trump’s allegedly illegal acts qualify for immunity as official acts, it will be an extended process that could easily push the trial beyond the November election.
Such a scenario would suit Trump. The less criminal exposure he has before America votes, the better for him.
If he can push the trial past November, and win back the White House, he can use the power of office to make the charges go away.
The New York hush money trial is the only one of four criminal prosecutions to have begun.
The Supreme Court appears set to shorten the odds on it being the only one before America goes to the polls.
It is the pressing matter of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the man who would be president, and it’s a race against time.
This stress test of the fundamentals of American democracy and rule of law gets ever more stressful.