Putin Gifted Biden a $12,000 Pen Months Before Invading Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping via a video link at the Kremlin in Moscow on Dec. 30, 2022. Mikhail Klimentyev/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images

According to government data released on Feb. 23, the president of Russia and the former leader of Afghanistan were among the top donors of gifts to President Joseph Biden and his family in 2021.

President Putin presented Biden with a $12,000 lacquer writing box and pen when they met for a much-anticipated exchange in Geneva, Switzerland, in June 2021.

Relations between the United States and Russia turned sour shortly after the Geneva meeting and have plummeted since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February.

Biden gifted Putin a pair of custom aviator sunglasses manufactured by Randolph Engineering, a Boston-based sunglasses brand. The company posted on its website about the president gifting the glasses.

During that month, the then-president of Afghanistan, Mohammed Ashraf Ghani, and his wife presented the U.S. president and first lady, Jill Biden, with silk carpets estimated to be worth $28,800.

Ghani fled Afghanistan shortly after the U.S. withdrew from the country on Biden’s orders in August 2021.

The information was included in the State Department’s annual accounting of gifts from foreign leaders given to American officials, which was published on the Federal Register website on Feb. 23. The list will be officially published for 2021 on Feb. 24.

All of the gifts from foreign dignitaries were submitted to the National Archives. According to the State Department’s documents, federal workers are required to file with their employing agency about presents from foreign governments for the calendar year.

Reports are created for both material gifts and gifts of travel or travel expenditures with values greater than the minimum of $415. Receiver may keep gifts if they pay their estimated value.

Biden decided to keep a picture of the late British queen Queen Elizabeth II for official display. The silver-framed photograph, which is thought to be worth $2,200, was given to the president at a Group of Seven meeting in southeast England.

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

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

Foreign leaders also gave gifts to former President Donald Trump during his administration. The gifts included 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.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.