Putin Writes to King Charles Twice in a Week

Leaders from around the world have been paying homage to the late queen, and that includes one who has fallen out of favor with the West—Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader has written to the new King Charles III twice over the past week, reports Metro. "I wish Your Majesty success, good health and all the best," Putin wrote in a letter Saturday, congratulating Charles on his accession to the throne, per Reuters. A few days earlier, Putin wrote a longer letter to Charles expressing his "deepest condolences" and adding that the "most important events in the recent history of the United Kingdom are inextricably linked with the name of Her Majesty."

That Putin, amid his war with Ukraine and related vitriol with the West, did so is a testament to the queen's "standing," writes Mark Galeotti at the Spectator. "It would be easy simply to dismiss this as hypocritical cant and the meaningless language of international diplomacy," but there's more to it, adds Galeotti. It's "a momentary reminder that whatever the anger and bitterness of the moment, the United Kingdom and Russia are also bound by ties that have endured both before." The New York Post notes that the queen was a distant cousin of Nicholas II, Russia's last tsar. (More Vladimir Putin stories.)