Kremlin Lists Putin’s Holiday Messages to Foreign Leaders, Emphasizing BRICS and Select Western Contacts
The recipient mix signals priority for BRICS, CIS partnerships over major Western capitals.
Overview
- On Dec. 30, the Kremlin said Putin sent Christmas and New Year greetings to BRICS leaders and to Indonesia, Myanmar, Mongolia and senior Vietnamese officials.
- Most CIS leadership received messages, naming Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, South Ossetia, Uzbekistan, and the leadership of Armenia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
- European exceptions were limited to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.
- NATO recipients included US President Donald Trump and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was not on the list, Japanese media reported.
- Putin also sent telegrams to leaders of North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua’s co-presidents and Ethiopia, as well as messages to Pope Leo XIV, Gerhard Schröder, Nursultan Nazarbayev and Raúl Castro.