It was all drawn from the playbook that he and his lugubrious Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have used time and again: Obfuscate, delay, muddle, throw in some whataboutism, be sorrowfully unctuous, but make sure to dangle a carrot.
Just the day before, Lavrov had given an hour-and-half -long master class in Putin-style diplomacy, which should have been a warning to the White House.
His interlocutors — a trio of fellow travelers led by onetime Fox News presenter Judge Andrew Napolitano — were pushovers, nodding and chortling as he complained about (horrors of horrors) being forced to use a unisex bathroom in Scandinavia. They purred their approval when he mournfully griped about all the injustices the West had doled out to his peace-loving country: The false accusations of poisoning opposition leader Alexei Navalny, trying to kill Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, or downing Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
It all came down to Europe and NATO’s broken promises and malign behavior, he said.
But as Lavrov piled deflection and digression upon deflection and digression, his plaintive lecture demonstrated that — just as Putin reinforced yesterday — Russia plans to play Trump, much like it did former U.S. President Barack Obama when it came to Syria, using delaying tactics to prevent America from hitting their client for unleashing chemical weapons.
Of course, unlike Obama, during his first term Trump did order an airstrike on a Syrian government airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack. So Putin has no doubt taken into consideration that a vexed Trump might lash out. Hence, the careful calibration of his response to the ceasefire proposal.
