Russian president Vladimir Putin arrived onstage at the awards ceremony for the FIFA World Cup with the sole umbrella in the middle of a torrential downpour — leaving French president Emmanuel Macron and Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović standing in the rain for several minutes until more umbrellas could be found.
Macron seemed delighted, as Les Bleus had just won their second World Cup. But observers called the umbrella incident a “power move” by the Russian leader, who had a unique opportunity to dominate global attention.
Putin will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Helsinki on Monday.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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