Putin's power move in international politics is making world leaders wait

How long have some officials had to wait?
One of Putin's favorite political tactics
Making world leaders wait
Not even the Pope was spared
A long list of victims
Queen Elizabeth II
Juan Carlos I
Park Geun-hye
Barack Obama
Carl XVI Gustaf
Tarja Halonen
Donald Trump
Pope Francis
Narendra Modi
UN General Assembly
Simon Peres
Tsakhia Elbegdorj
Shinzo Abe
Alexander Lukashenko
Yulia Tymoshenko
Viktor Yanukovych
Angela Merkel
How long have some officials had to wait?

Vladimir Putin has always been known as a difficult world leader to work with and he has a long history of making suitable power moves against his international political rivals in order to get them off their game.

One of Putin's favorite political tactics

One of Putin's favorite tactics when dealing with other global leaders has been to make them wait for him for a scheduled meeting, and Putin got very good at this before he launched the invasion of Ukraine.

Making world leaders wait

The Russian President really did enjoy making other world leaders wait and it didn’t matter to Putin if you were a head of state or a foreign official, nearly every level of official has been forced to wait for Putin. 

Not even the Pope was spared

Even the Bishop of Rome wasn’t exempt from Putin’s snubs according to Statista, which noted that Pope Francis was left waiting on the Russian President for nearly an hour the last time the two world leaders met in person. 

A long list of victims

Statista put together a long list of world leaders who have been left waiting by Putin, and while the times are approximate estimates of how long each leader was left waiting, some of them are still absolutely astonishing. 

Queen Elizabeth II

Queen of the United Kingdom

Meeting Year: 2003

Time left waiting: 14 minutes

Juan Carlos I

King of Spain 

Meeting Year: 2006

Time left waiting: 20 minutes

Park Geun-hye

Former President of South Korea 

Time left waiting: 30 minutes 

Year: 2013

Barack Obama

Former President of the United States 

Meeting Year: 2012

Time left waiting: 40 minutes

Carl XVI Gustaf

King of Sweden 

Meeting Year: 2011

Time left waiting: 40 minutes

Tarja Halonen

Former President of Finland 

Meeting Year: 2004

Time left waiting: 40 minutes

Donald Trump

Former President of the United States

Meeting Year: 2018

Time left waiting: 45 minutes

Pope Francis

Bishop of Rome Pontifex Maximus Pope 

Meeting Year: 2015

Time left waiting: 50 minutes

Narendra Modi

Prime Minister of India 

Meeting Year: 2014

Time left waiting: 1 hour  

UN General Assembly

Meeting in Paris

Meeting Year: 2015

Time left waiting: 1 hour and 20 minutes

Simon Peres

Former President of Israel

Meeting Year: 2013

Time left waiting: 1 hour and 30 minutes 

Tsakhia Elbegdorj

Former President of Mongolia 

Meeting Year: 2014

Time left waiting: 2 hours

Shinzo Abe

Former Prime Minister of Japan

Meeting Year: 2016

Time left waiting: 3 hours

Alexander Lukashenko

President of Belarus

Meeting Year: 2013

Time left waiting: 3 hours

Yulia Tymoshenko

Former Prime Minister of Ukraine

Meeting Year: 2009

Time left waiting: 3 hours

Viktor Yanukovych

Former President of Ukraine

Meeting Year: 2012

Time left waiting: 4 hours

Angela Merkel

Former Chancellor of Germany

Meeting Year: 2014

Time left waiting: 4 hours and 15 minutes

More for you

Top Stories