President Joe Biden’s decision to meet with Vladimir Putin initially prompted skeptics to question whether it would only serve to elevate the Russian leader’s position on the world stage.

Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne told Boston Public Radio on Thursday that Biden did well to push back against Putin’s defense of jailing opposition leader Alexei Navalny — Putin insisted he’s only trying to avoid the likes of disorder America experienced in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Biden just said, “That’s ridiculous,’” said Dionne, noting the straightforwardness in the American president’s response.

“Whether you like Biden or not I think if you’re an American friend of democracy you looked at what Biden said, and said, ‘That is what a defense of democracy looks like,’” said Dionne.

There were no big achievements from the summit, but no expectations of that either, said Dionne.

“On the whole I think (Biden) came out pretty well.”

EJ Dionne is a columnist for the Washington Post and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His latest book is Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite To Save Our Country