Putin to attend Austrian foreign minister's wedding before Merkel meeting

Vladimir Putin doesn't make a habit of dropping in on foreign politicians' weddings.

He didn't even go to his own press secretary's. But he will swing by the Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl's wedding en route to his relatively impromptu meeting with the German chancellor today in Berlin.

And he may be accompanied by a group of dancing and singing Cossacks.

He is a controversial guest to what is billed as a private affair and there has been plenty of criticism from liberal-minded Austrians.

Although Ms Kneissl is an independent, she was picked for the job by Austria's far-right Freedom Party.

They advocate lifting sanctions on Russia and are happy to accept Russia's annexation of Crimea. Go figure.

Given these commitments and past records, we'll see if he makes it to Angela Merkel's Schloss Meseberg residence just outside Berlin on time.

He famously kept her waiting back in 2014 because a military parade in Serbia ran over.

But right now, with an extra round of sanctions guiding his every move, Mr Putin is casting around to make friends and influence people - and shoring up German-Russian relations is perhaps best handled with care.

When the US sanctions noose tightens, Russia looks to its EU trading partners. They have their own sanctions package but it is Ukraine-specific.

And unlike the US, the EU manages to keep conversations going along parallel tracks.

There's much to discuss. The US president's objection to the Nordstream 2 project which will supply natural gas from Russia to Germany is a transparent ploy to push US liquefied natural gas.

But that doesn't make it any less problematic for Germany or Russia, neither of whom have an interest in seeing Russian energy supplies to Europe severed or huge joint-infrastructure projects falter because of the capricious US president.

Both have a common interest in salvaging what they can of the Iran deal despite the re-imposition of US sanctions.

It is in neither Russia nor the EU's interests to re-invigorate the Iranian hardliners at the moderate President Hassan Rouhani's expense and for the country to set itself back on a nuclear course.

Mrs Merkel's refugee problem is well known - an existential one for her party and her leadership.

Much as she disapproves of Russia's modus operandi in Syria and its support for President Bashar al Assad's murderous regime, refugee returns and humanitarian help are Russia's buzzwords of the moment.

And although she will surely try to dissuade Russia from allowing and supporting a push into Idlib by Assad forces, which seems imminent, Mr Putin is a key playmaker in Syria - and Germany and the EU need to work out the role they'll play in the country's reconstruction and stabilisation.

Much as it may pain them, they'll need to talk to Russia in that regard.

And then of course there's Ukraine.

An ongoing and grubby conflict in the Donbass where both sides are as entrenched as ever and where there is so little trust between any of the countries in the "Normandy format" - the contact group comprising Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France seeking to solve the country - that it's hard to see the status quo changing.

How much will we know of the substance of all this? Initially not much at all. The Kremlin has made clear that press statements will be made ahead of the talks so that the two leaders can keep talking for as long as it takes.

That is telling in and of itself. We don't of course know much at all of what was said behind closed doors in Helsinki between the US and Russian president, but that summit was about optics and the press conference at the end. This seems to be definitively not.

And if Donald Trump wanted to know how to handle Mr Putin in an appropriately circumspect manner while making at least some headway on matters of mutual national interest, then he might choose to look to Berlin. But my guess is he won't.