German Chancellor Angela Merkel is at Russian President Vladimir Putin's summer residence in Sochi for talks on a variety of complex issues. No one is expecting any major breakthroughs in Sochi, writes the BBC.

The Germans lead European nations in their opposition over Crimea and Syria, and Russians are believed to be behind a direct cyber attack on Merkel's own Christian Democratic Party, in an effort to influence the upcoming September 24 elections.

Coincidentally -- or not -- US President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak to President Putin today, a call announced Monday. Experts say that Putin and Merkel have a grudging respect for each other, and surely it helps that the Chancellor speaks Russian, with Putin speaking German. European media reports that Putin is most interested in hearing Merkel's impressions of Trump.

With Donald Trump's love affair with autocratic strong men, Angela Merkel is believed to represent the future of democratic values around the globe. Trump's daughter Ivanka spent much time with Merkel last week, meetings that fared far better than the president's with her.

In January 2017, Foreign Policy wrote a fascinating piece on how Angela Merkel deals with bullies, noting that Vladimir Putin considers her to be a "dangerous person," according to Russian dissident and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The chancellor’s astounding record in outfoxing, outlasting, and outmaneuvering full-of-themselves male rivals, however, began before Putin appeared on the scene. Her track record offers the outlines of a go-to plan for dealing with bullies — and, not coincidentally, it dovetails tightly with her top foreign-policy advisor’s five-point plan for taking on Trump.

Merkel spent last time last week with Trump daughter Ivanka, at the W20 Summit in Berlin. After President Trump made an asshat of himself in refusing to shake Merkel's hand on her White House visit -- and seated his daughter with no foreign policy qualifications next to Merkel at a joint meeting -- Merkel turned the insults to her advantage by forging a relationship with Ivanka. Read on.

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