Who's who?

It's disturbing that some mayor wants to have his own foreign policy. It's truly despicable, if that policy is directed against his own country.

It is completely normal for mayors to be active in all kinds of events taking place in their jurisdiction. The problem is the nature of those event. As we all know too well, there is no separation of powers in Russia. There even is very little separation between the state and business. So, just to keep it simple, every Russian of even little importance should be treated as an envoy of the state. At least till proven otherwise. Taking that into consideration, all care should be taken when meeting those people. One should be especially careful of all perceived endorsements of the regime.

Taking that into account, meeting those, in this case quite obvious, envoys, should be done by diplomats following normal protocol. Meeting them in the guise of charity is definitely not the way to do it.