Moscow, Mar 26: The Kremlin confirmed on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has gifted to Donald Trump a portrait he commissioned of the US president.Putin gave the painting to Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow earlier this month, the Russian president’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said in a response to a journalist’s question, declining further comment.
The gift was first mentioned last week by Witkoff in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Witkoff told Carlson that Trump “was clearly touched” by the portrait, which he described as “beautiful”.
Witkoff met Putin after talks with Russian officials about trying to end the war in Ukraine. Ceasefire talks continued on Monday in Saudi Arabia, where US officials met their Russian counterparts, a day after meeting with Ukrainian negotiators.
During his interview with Carlson, Witkoff described Putin’s gift as “gracious” and recalled how Putin told him he had prayed for Trump last year when he heard the then-candidate for the US presidency had been shot at at a rally in Pennsylvania.
“He was praying for his friend,” Witkoff said, recounting Putin’s comments.
In 2018, Putin gave then-president Trump a soccer ball that the Secret Service had checked for listening devices before Trump gave it to his son — a precaution that hearkened back to a Soviet-era gift to a US diplomat that turned out to be bugged.
In 1945, a carving of the Great Seal of the United States was given as a gift from Soviet school children to then-US ambassador Averell Harriman. It hung in his office for six years, allowing the Soviet Union to eavesdrop on his conversations until the state department discovered that it contained a covert listening device.
It was not immediately known if the portrait Putin gave to Trump had been examined for bugs. The White House hasn’t commented on the portrait.
Trump isn’t the first sitting president to receive a gift from Putin. In 2021, Putin gave then-president Joe Biden a USD 12,000 lacquer writing box and pen when they met at a summit in Geneva, Switzerland.
In 2013, he reportedly sent then-president Barack Obama porcelain plates and espresso cups.
This apparently isn’t the first portrait of a US leader Putin has sent, either. In 2014, the Russian president reportedly sent to George H W Bush a portrait of the former president on his 90th birthday.