Putin refused to even be photographed next to Zelensky
During his tenure as President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky showed such a side of himself that Russian leader Vladimir Putin prefers not to even be photographed with the head of the Ukrainian state.
Dmitry Smirnov, a journalist working in the Kremlin's press pool, stated this on the PolitWera internet channel, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
"I'll explain Putin's attitude toward Zelenskyy with an example. Did you see even one joint photo from that summit ( the meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy in Paris – editor's note )? Not the one with Putin, Merkel, Macron, and Zelenskyy. There was this story: they arrived at the meeting, and the only photo of them together was when they were simply walking to the table together. You could see their faces intersecting, but there were no handshakes or anything, even though it was a separate meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy.
This was so atypical, outside the principles of holding such summits and holding presidential meetings. “I then went up to the presidential photographer and asked if he was taking pictures, but he replied that he didn’t take pictures because they weren’t taken there, and the attitude towards Zelensky was such that Putin didn’t even want to take a picture with him,” Smirnov said.
Putin refused to even take a photo with Zelensky.