White House media were not allowed into the room for the President's meeting with the Russians, though going by the images - first released by the Russian government, not the US - Donald Trump was enjoying himself.

What a busy couple of days the US president has just had.

Donald Trump's fired his FBI director (the one who was running an investigation into ties between his campaign team and Mother Russia), met with Russia's foreign minister, and ambassador Sergey Kislyak - who's the "typhoid Mary", as the Guardian put it, of the whole scandal in the first place - and barred his own press corps from the Oval Office, instead letting Russian photographers capture the cozy meeting.

The first photos of Trump's gathering with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to be made public came from the Russian government, not the White House. They showed a meeting that happened just hours after James Comey learnt he was being fired by the president - news that was broken to him on the television as he briefed FBI agents in LA.

ALEXANDER SHCHERBAK/TASS In this image, taken by a Russian photographer, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US President Donald Trump, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak share a laugh in the Oval Office.

Trump bemoans the fact everyone keeps focussing on the alleged Russia-Trump kerfuffle (it happened, after all, prior to the election and things that far back aren't worth focussing on unless you're talking about how 'uge the electoral college win was). This probably isn't going to put a stop to that.



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Before he got to roam the White House, Lavrov had a grip-and-grin photoshoot with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the State Department.

ALEXANDER SHCHERBAK/GETTY Donald Trump shakes hands with Russia's US ambassador Sergei Kislyak. Numerous investigations have been launched into what contact US officials had with the ambassador, the "typhoid Mary" of Trump's Russia scandal.

That's when a reporter shouted a question about whether Comey's dismissal "cast a shadow" on the meeting.

"Was he fired? You're kidding! You're kidding!" the veteran Russian diplomat sarcastically replied. Asked about Comey's firing at a briefing later Wednesday, Lavrov said it was an internal US matter and not for him to discuss.

It's worth mentioning a CBS News reporter asked Russian President Vladimir Putin how the firing would affect relations between the two countries.

REUTERS Russian President Vladimir Putin takes a spill, soon after brushing off questions about how James Comey's firing would affect relations between the States and Russia.

Bedecked in hockey gear for a gruelling match on the ice, Putin replied the question was "funny", adding: "We have nothing to do with it."

What made Putin's response go viral, however, was where he answered the question - and what he was wearing.

"You see, I am going to play hockey," said Putin. "I have hockey plans." (Things didn't start too well - Putin fell soon after face off and while things improved a little bit later on, the play was, well, rather tepid.)

ALEXANDER SHCHERBAK/TASS The Russian talks were just the warm-up act. Trump's big prize is a face-to-face with Vladimir Putin, which is expected to happen in the coming months.

Back to Washington, Lavrov also tiptoed through the political minefield that is the probe into the ties between Trump's team and Russia - dismissing the story as "fake news".

"There is not a single fact, there is no compelling evidence given to anyone regarding Russia's intervention and that is it," Lavrov said.

He added it was "humiliating" for the American people to hear Russia was controlling the political situation in the US.

JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez rallies with protesters against US President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, outside the White House.

All these meetings are intended as a prelude to Trump's first face-to-face talks with Putin, expected within months. But after the Russian government released photos of Trump greeting Lavrov and Kislyak, reporters were suddenly ushered into the Oval Office. They found Trump sitting there with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

The Russians had left.

"We had a very, very good meeting with Mr Lavrov, and I thought it was very good," Trump said. In a later statement, the White House said Trump "further emphasised his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia".

REUTERS White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says former FBI Director James Comey "circumvented the chain of command" which ultimately led President Trump to fire him.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Trump didn't mention Kislyak, and neither did the White House statement.

Trump fired his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the extent of conversations he had with the Russian ambassador before Trump's inauguration. The conversations were intercepted by US intelligence agencies. Two US officials have said Flynn is one of the subjects of investigations into contacts between Trump's advisers and the Russian government during and after last year's election.

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