President Trump, who likes to claim the United States is more respected around the world now that he is in charge, became the subject of Russia's snark shortly after he decided not to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 in Buenos Aires while in the air on his way to Argentina.
CNBC:
Trump announced the cancellation via Twitter, citing Russia's seizure of two Ukrainian gunboats and a tugboat in the Kerch Strait, a shared zone which sits between Ukraine and Russia. He said his decision "would be best for all parties concerned."
But some wondered if new developments in the special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation were to blame.
Russian officials questioned Trump's justification for scrapping the meeting at the last minute, and dismissed the notion that the diplomatic development would be a setback for Russia.
A spokesperson for the Kremlin on Thursday said the cancellation would free up time "for useful meetings."
A top Russian lawmaker said the foregone meeting was a lost opportunity "not for Putin, but for Trump."
"We have heard the official explanation and taken note of it," Kremlin foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said during a Friday briefing. "But is it true? I think the true reason is rooted in the domestic political situation in the United States."
The leaders could still connect at the summit. The Kremlin said Friday that it expects an informal meeting to take place. The White House seemed to leave open that possibility, saying only that no meeting had been scheduled.
A favorite Kremlin talking point is that the Mueller probe is damaging US-Russia relations, something the White House continues to echo.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Mueller's probe "probably does undermine our relationship with Russia." But, she said, the "reason for our canceled meeting is Ukraine."
Russian lawmakers suggested that the cancellation was pushed by "anti-Russian" forces in the U.S. government.
"Trump's cancellation of a meeting with Putin is another [instance of] Twitter anti-diplomacy," said Leonid Slutsky, a Russian member of parliament who chairs the foreign affairs committee in the Duma, the lower chamber of parliament.
Slutsky told reporters Trump was "probably squeezed by Russian opponents inside the U.S.," and said the move "goes completely in line with the anti-Russian policy," according to a report in the state news agency TASS.
In a post on Facebook, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said the "source and the driving forces" behind Trump's action are "exclusively in the whirling of domestic political passions in the American capital." Kosachev chairs the foreign affairs committee in the Russian parliament's upper house.
Russians tease Trump for canceling his G-20 meeting with Putin, blame US politics, not Ukraine (CNBC)