Dear Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev arrived on a friendly visit to Bulgaria.
At the airport, he was met by officials led by the Secretary General of the NRB Todor Zhivkov.
The General Secretary signed the book of honored guests and received a large bouquet of flowers from Bulgarian schoolchildren...
No, sorry, that's another story.
Joe Biden arrived in Munich for the G7 summit.
He was met at the airport by officials in traditional Bavarian dress, led by Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder.
The President of the United States signed the book of honored guests and accepted flowers from local children.
Then Biden went to the Alpine castle of Elmau, where the meeting of the leaders of the "seven" will take place.
However, outwardly, all this really resembles a newsreel from the time of late stagnation.
Here is the aged leader of the “free world” descending the gangway of the presidential plane, having managed to never stumble, here schoolchildren dressed in Bavarian suits run up to him, here he is talking to them animatedly about something and, it seems, can hardly resist to pat the little medchen on a cheek as ripe as a peach, here he is carefully walking along the red carpet, carefully looking at his feet: the main thing is not to stumble!
Didn't stumble, passed.
And now a black helicopter with the inscription United States of America on board takes off the ground and heads for the Bavarian Alps - to the obvious relief of those who meet them.
The obsequiousness with which the decrepit American president was greeted in Munich contrasted sharply with the tense, almost hostile atmosphere that surrounded every European visit of his predecessor, Trump.
Which once again proves that it is not the chair in the Oval Office that Washington’s European partners worship, and not even the person who occupies it, but the cinematic image of the “leader of the free world”, which must fully coincide with their expectations.
Everyone has seen in Hollywood films how the President of the United States gets off the ladder of his plane, gathers faithful allies and associates around the round table, gives clear orders - and now the forces of Light and Good are smashing the legions of "bad guys", and freedom and democracy are triumphing around the world .
Trump did not fit this cliché very well: he treated the “bad guys” suspiciously softly, and demanded from the forces of Light and Good,
that they pay for the protection and patronage of Washington at market prices.
And Biden fits perfectly - despite the fact that he is poorly oriented in space and, communicating with the press, uses cheat sheets.
The owner of the White House will obviously need cheat sheets: before the trip, a representative of his administration told reporters that the president will take part in seven working meetings on issues such as climate change, infrastructure, energy security, the global economy and Ukraine.
Mainly, of course, Ukraine.
Another official said that G7 leaders plan to put forward "concrete" proposals to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The very first meeting of the G-7 in the Bavarian Alps showed that the leaders of the West are going to put pressure on Putin by showing off their… naked torsos.
Agence France Presse posted a video of the discussion of this burning issue.
Boris Johnson: “In jackets?
No jackets?
Need to undress?"
Justin Trudeau: "Let's wait until they take a photo."
Johnson: "We all have to show that we are cooler than Putin."
Trudeau: "We're doing a bare-chested riding show."
Ursula von der Leyen (visibly perking up): “Oh yes!
Horse riding is the best."
Johnson: "We have to show them our chest muscles."
It is a pity, of course, that the idea never came to fruition.
Biden's pecs would surely impress European audiences.
But jokes are jokes, and the “seven” really faces difficult tasks.
And one cannot envy the US president here: it is he, as the eldest in both age and rank, who needs to unite the European and Asian vassals of Washington around a common approach to helping Ukraine and what is called “punishing Russia” in the language of Western democracies.
This trip will be a test of his ability to keep nations together as the war drags on for the fifth month with no sign of ending.
Biden will have to test the unity of the allies twice: at the economic summit in Bavaria and at the NATO summit in Madrid, where he will go immediately after seven meetings at Elmau Castle.
But in both cases it will not be easy, although for different reasons.
Despite the big words that “the whole world” supports the Zelensky regime, in reality, Europeans are not too eager to invest in a sinking Ukrainian ship.
And following in the wake of Washington has already brought the Old World into a very unpleasant situation of energy shortage, due to which industrial capacities have to be stopped.
Not only are Europeans forced to buy expensive American gas instead of cheap Russian gas, but they also suffer huge losses due to the closure of production.
And in the short term - stopping entire industries, such as the German chemical industry.
Therefore, Biden’s calls for a further fight against Putin at the expense of the European consumer will, of course, be heeded with demonstrative respect, but, as the classic says, “sigh and think to yourself: when the hell will you take it!”.
Moreover, after the embargo on the export of Russian oil and gas, which hit the pockets of Western countries, Washington does not intend to stop and is going to push through the ban on the import of Russian gold.
Gold is Moscow's second largest export after energy.
If Biden succeeds in persuading the allies to introduce a "gold embargo", Russia will lose $19 billion, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken hastened to tell reporters.
But the key word here is "if".
So far, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, the four members of the G7, have announced plans to impose a “gold embargo”.
But the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, reacted very cautiously to these plans.
“We are ready to consider whether it is possible to target gold in such a way that the target is the Russian economy, and not our economy,” Michel said.
And the head of the European Council was skeptical about the initiative to limit prices for Russian oil (born in the bowels of the Biden administration and such a “bright” idea), saying that he needed “more confidence” that
Michel can be understood: the "gold embargo" will inevitably lead to a rise in the price of the yellow metal.
Since Russia will not stop selling gold (after all, the list of buyers is not limited to the G7), the story of oil and gas will repeat itself, from the sale of which our country now receives more profit than before the imposition of sanctions.
But in the US and the EU, a rise in the price of gold may well give an additional impetus to inflation, as, again, happened with energy resources.
And this is just one of the stories that the US and its European partners look at differently.
At the G7 summit, the differences in approaches between the USA, Great Britain and Canada, on the one hand, and the European "giants" - France, Germany, Italy, on the other hand, on the other hand (Japan involuntarily adjoins the Anglo-Saxons, who act as its "defenders" in the face of expansion China).
The Old World is not enthusiastic about the idea of “democracy against autocracies” promoted by Washington, not because of great love for Moscow or Beijing, but because trade with China is of strategic importance for the EU.
“Other G7 countries, especially France and Germany, are less inclined to view problems through the prism of opposition between democracy and autocracy,” said Ash Jane of the Atlantic Council.
And at the summit of the North Atlantic Alliance, which opens in Madrid on June 28, Biden will also have a hard time.
There, he will have to persuade Turkey to abandon its objections to the admission of Sweden and Finland to NATO: as you know, Ankara demands that these Scandinavian countries stop supporting the PKK and a number of terrorist organizations associated with it.
And it will be very, very difficult: in recent weeks, the entire top of the Washington establishment, including National Security Advisor Sullivan and Secretary of State Blinken, have been talking with Turkish colleagues, trying to convince Turkey to abandon its claims to Stockholm and Helsinki, but these meetings have not brought results.
A few days ago, Ankara was visited by a member of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Angus King, who said that the contradictions between Turkey and Sweden are unlikely to be resolved before the meeting in Madrid.
And this means that the whole burden of the task of returning the prodigal Turkish lamb to the common barn of NATO will fall on the senile shoulders of Joe Biden.
Former NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller believes that if at the last minute at the summit there is a need for diplomatic intervention - direct contact with Erdogan to conclude a deal, then Biden will take part in this.
But will he be up to the task?
Previous attempts by the President of the United States to win over the leaders of the East were not successful - in contrast, by the way, with Trump, who was very effective in the eastern direction.
“I think it will be very important for the president to convey the message that we must stay together on this issue and continue to support Ukraine in every possible way, even though the economic crises are gaining momentum right now,” Rose Gottemoeller said.
But here Biden's position is very weak, because at home, in the United States, he has not only an economic, but also a full-fledged social crisis.
While the owner of the White House travels around Europe, the United States is shaking in a new bout of leftist fever: after the cancellation of the decision of the US Supreme Court on Friday in the case of Roe v. Wade, violent public unrest swept the country.
Supreme Court judges are threatened with reprisal, one of the most radical Democrats in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, calls for their impeachment, the vocalist of the “best punk band in the world” Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong, renounces American citizenship and shouts into the camera: Fuck America!
At a rally in Illinois, America's most popular politician, former US President Donald Trump bitterly admits: “This is no longer a great country.
I hate to tell you this, but this nation is in decline.
This is a country where free speech is no longer allowed, where crime thrives and the economy collapses,
And of course, the European partners of the United States see all this - they are not blind.
And they are well aware that the leader of the free world from “dear Leonid Ilyich”, that is, excuse me, Joseph Josephovich, is very conditional.
Of course, they would have preferred someone younger and more energetic, like John F. Kennedy, who flew to Berlin and inspired the crowd with his Ich bin ein Berliner.
But they don't have a second Kennedy, they only have Biden.
And if he is received with honors, it is only because they feel that in him, old and ridiculous, greeting the emptiness and in need of cribs, is their only hope.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.