Global players set the tone for strategic cooperation amid fraying past relations

Following the change of Israeli leadership in June this year, the new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett left for Sochi in Russia to hold his first official meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 22 (Friday).

The Bennett-Putin meeting, expected to last only a couple of hours, surprisingly ran longer, prompting the Israeli PM to make an ad-hoc plan to extend his stay in Sochi until the next day, October 23 (Saturday), mainly to avoid traveling on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest. The meeting took place at Putin’s residence in the Black Sea resort town in Russia.