Shall We Dance?

- Ilya Arkhipov and Arne Delfs, with Margaret Talev

On his way to Berlin for a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin stopped in the Alps on Aug. 18 for the mountainside wedding of Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl. Seated at her right hand at one point, Putin traded toasts with the bride, waltzed with her, and even stuck around for the Cossack singers and dancers he’d brought as guest performers. It was just long enough for Russian official media to tout the appearance as evidence Putin is no longer unwelcome in Europe.

Later that day, the German government tried to play down the significance of his meeting with Merkel, but it was hard to deny the symbolism. It was the Russian president’s first one-on-one meeting on the home turf of his most implacable European opponent since relations froze in 2014 after his annexation of Crimea. If not a breakthrough, it was at least a thawing of the ice.

With Donald Trump upending diplomatic ties around the world, Putin is finding a warmer reception from European leaders who’ve long shunned him. Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, plus the billions of dollars in tariffs and sanctions he’s leveled at the European Union and Russia, suddenly give Putin and European leaders a set of common grievances. The U.S. president has added to the pressure with recurrent warnings that he might impose sanctions on a natural gas pipeline under construction from Russia to Germany that Putin and Merkel strongly support.