Putin's gift to Biden in Geneva listed as "most expensive" received by US president

Vladimir Putin gifted President Joe Biden a distinctive Russian desk set valued at $12,000 after their meeting in Geneva in June 2021, the most expensive gift Biden received from a foreign leader that year.

A new government report listed the “Kholuy Lacquer Miniature Workshop Desk Writing Set and Pen” among the dozens of items Biden and other administration officials received that year, NBC News informs.

Biden accepted it from the Russian president around their high-stakes summit, their last and only face-to-face meeting before Russia's invasion of Ukraine a year ago.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House two months ago, he had a far more modest offering: an American flag.

First lady Jill Biden accepted a silk carpet from Afghanistan’s first lady valued at $19,200 in June 2021, just weeks before her husband’s government fell in the face of a rapid Taliban takeover following the U.S. military withdrawal.

Federal law requires the State Department to list any gifts from foreign dignitaries to senior U.S. officials that exceed $415 in value.

The annual report from the Office of the Chief of Protocol offers insight into ways in which foreign leaders try to personalize diplomacy with the White House.