Putin gave Biden $12,000 pen set months earlier than Ukraine invasion | World News

The writing set was the most costly present Biden obtained from a international chief that yr. It was described in an annual report from the State Division’s Workplace of the Chief of Protocol as a “Kholuy lacquer miniature workshop desk writing set and pen.”

The present alternate got here throughout a 2.5-hour summit in Geneva in June 2021 that now sits as a high-water mark in US-Russian relations that then deteriorated within the run-up to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a yr in the past.

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The White Home stated on the time that Biden had given Putin a pair of his trademark aviator sun shades and a glass sculpture of an American bison, however neither the White Home nor the Kremlin disclosed Putin’s present on the time.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in 2021 gave Biden a US flag, estimated to be price $700, in keeping with the report, which particulars items from international governments to federal staff.

The alternate of private items is usually a revealing a part of worldwide statecraft, typically showcasing the personalities of each the giver and the recipient. Throughout Donald Trump’s administration, international leaders wooed the president, with items together with a Louis Vuitton golf bag from French President Emmanuel Macron and a gold-framed portrait of Trump himself from then-Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

Among the many items disclosed in Biden’s first report are a Dupont fountain pen from Macron, a photo voltaic wristwatch from former Swiss President Man Parmelin, and a pen drawing of Biden’s childhood residence from then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The late Queen Elizabeth II gave Biden an image of herself.

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Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was maybe Biden’s most prolific gifter: He gave Biden two canine bowls, two wool blankets, a ceramic cup and mug set, a fountain pen with a bottle of Oxford blue ink and a photograph of a Frederick Douglass mural in Edinburgh.

As a result of the items belong to the US authorities and never the recipient, most items are transferred to the Nationwide Archives and Data Administration for protected maintaining. However there are exceptions: Secretary of State Antony Blinken reimbursed the federal government $1,457 to buy items he obtained from Pope Francis, together with a bas-relief depicting a migrant mom with a toddler.