Putin-style “power play”: Kremlin delays Trump envoy for 12 hours.
According to the Daily Mail, the Kremlin reportedly kept US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, waiting for at least eight hours before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and delivering Trump’s message about a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine.
According to the media outlet, Witkoff spent two-thirds of the 12 hours he spent in Moscow, the Russian capital, waiting outside the Kremlin gates, an event that Putin described as a “power play.”
Footage shows that Witkoff’s convoy arrived at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport around noon on Thursday, and Trump’s envoy spent the next eight hours wandering around Moscow!
Such an act is not interpreted well in international diplomacy. Sky News wrote that Witkoff’s meeting with Putin was postponed due to the Russian president’s meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived in Moscow for a hasty meeting on Thursday.
After a meeting with Putin that was postponed for unknown reasons until the evening, Vitkoff left Moscow four hours later (around 2 a.m. local time). Vnukovo Airport was closed an hour after Vitkoff left due to a Ukrainian drone strike.
Moscow-based journalist Ivor Bennett wrote that Vitkoff’s delay was a clear signal from the Kremlin that “who is setting the agenda?”
He added that Lukashenko’s trip was scheduled for Wednesday, and that the coincidence was less likely to be a coincidence and more like a classic Putin “power play.”