Russia confirmed this Friday that the president of France, Emmanuel Macronkept a distance with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putinin your meeting regarding the crisis in Ukraine because The French president refused to undergo a covid test in the Kremlin.
The images released on Monday Macron and Putin each sitting on the edge of a six-meter white table They generated an avalanche of comments and many pointed out the coldness that the images showed.
In Internet, the spread photo of the meeting generated a cascade of ridicule and comparisons with the distance maintained with other meetings with foreign dignitarieslike the Argentine president Alberto Fernandez and the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym Jomart Tokayev.
“Some follow their own rules, do not cooperate with the host”
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, indicated that the decision to use this furniture was due to the fact that the French leader refused to undergo a PCR test in the Russian presidency.
“Conversations with some are held at a long table, the distance (from the table) is regarding six meters,” the spokesman said, answering a reporter’s question.
“This is because some follow their own rules, they do not cooperate with the host,” the official said, noting that in these cases an additional health protocol is imposed to protect the Russian president and his guests.
The spokesman denied a political background.
“This is not politics and does not interfere in any way in the negotiations,” Peskov said.
The French presidency justified that the protocol conditions for a meeting between the two heads of state with a smaller distance, with a contact that included a handshake and a smaller table, did not seem to them acceptable or compatible with the limitations of the agenda .
“We chose the other option proposed by the Russian protocol,” explained the entourage of the French president, who arrived in Moscow to meet Putin in the middle of the followingnoon on Monday.
Since January, Putin has received the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, and the Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, countries allied with Russia, at the great white table.
Instead, the Argentine president and the Kazakh president sat close to Putin.
Macron traveled to Russia to try to de-escalate tensions between Moscow and Ukraine, following a massive movement of Russian troops on the border.
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© Agence France-Presse
