For a man with a well-known fondness for luxury watches, President Putin’s timekeeping leaves much to be desired.
Continuing a tradition for tardiness that stretches back to the early years of his rule, Mr Putin was three hours late for talks with Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, at a hot springs resort in western Japan yesterday. No reason was given for the delay in his first official trip to a G7 member country since Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014.
Mr Abe is just the latest in a long line of politicians, royalty and religious leaders that the Russian president has kept waiting. Last year he arrived one hour and twenty minutes late for a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican. He also managed to be 14 minutes late for his appointment with the Queen at Buckingham Palace in 2003. A year before that, he drew criticism when he kept the parents of children killed in a plane crash waiting for more than two hours.
Others have been forced to twiddle their thumbs for much longer while they wait on Mr Putin. In 2012, he was more than four hours late for talks with President Yanukovych of Ukraine.
At least Russia’s strongman leader had an excuse that time — he’d stopped off in Crimea for a chat and a photo session with a group of pro-Kremlin bikers called the Night Wolves. The same year, John Kerry, the US secretary of state, was forced to take a stroll in Red Square while he waited three hours for Mr Putin to turn up.
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The Russian leader has also managed to be late for talks with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, over the years. Earlier this month Fumio Kishida, the Japanese foreign minister, was kept waiting for two hours when he visited the Kremlin.
Analysts have suggested that Mr Putin may frequently keep fellow political leaders waiting in an attempt to gain the psychological upper hand before talks.
Even his ex-wife, Lyudmila, has complained about Mr Putin’s inability to make appointments — or in her case, dates — on time.
“I was never late, but Vladimir Vladimirovich always was,” she once told a Russian journalist, referring to the early stages of their relationship. “An hour and a half was normal. I remember standing around in the metro. The first 15 minutes of lateness are OK, half an hour is also fine. But when an hour goes by and he’s still not there, you just cry from the hurt.”