USA – It was billed as a triumph of diplomacy for two of the world’s great ‘silverbacks’ as they sought to bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine.
Yet when President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin came nose-to-nose in Alaska last week, what may prove the most telling moment of the historic showdown turned out to be the least obtrusive of all.
And it was the work, not of an 800lb political gorilla, but a quietly spoken woman who had other things to do that day. The moment came away from the cameras when, as the two presidents entered a private room at the US military base, Trump handed Putin a letter written by his wife, Melania, then sitting 4 300 miles away in New York.
“The cameras were fixated on everything the two men did in public,” a source close to Mr Trump told the Daily Mail. “But the real soft power move came in private, from someone who wasn’t there. And that was the first lady. “President Putin opened the envelope and read the letter right there, before the talks began. You could tell he was impressed and he said as much. It was a diplomatic masterstroke.”
Melania’s letter, made public by Trump on his Truth Social site this week, went straight for the heartstrings of the Russian president, urging him to think of children’s suffering – without specifically mentioning Russia’s devastating war against Ukraine.
She wrote: “A simple yet profound concept, Mr Putin, as I am sure you agree, is that each generation’s descendants begin their lives with a purity, an innocence which stands above geography, government and ideology.
“Yet in today’s world, some children are forced to carry a quiet laughter, untouched by the darkness around them… Mr Putin, you can singlehandedly restore their melodic laughter.”
For many in Washington, the emergence of former-model Melania, 55, who was born in Slovenia – then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – as a serious player on the international political scene has come as a surprise, not to say a shock.
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