The Russian president sent a personal farewell letter to the former prime minister after he left office, and Netanyahu asked to return his own message with the ambassador.  

"We are trying not to make comparisons between Netanyahu and the current prime minister," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with I24NEWS last week. "Putin and Netanyahu have worked together for many, many years and it takes time to build a relationship."

Precisely for this reason, the meeting between Putin and Bennett in Sochi on Friday is so important for the prime minister. The impression that Bennett will leave on Putin is important not only for Israeli-Russian relations, but also for his internal political status.