Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 7 – Last week,
Vladimir Putin showed up for his appointment with Pope Francis more than an
hour after the scheduled time, the latest case of his failing to be on time
when meeting with this or that world leader.
But Putin is prompt enough when he thinks that is important as when he
is to appear on television.
That suggests, Russian commentator
Igor Yakovenko says, that Putin decides whether on the basis of what is
important for him and on a calculation that making others wait for him gives
him a psychological advantage, something unlikely to change until someone
refuses to meet with him when he arrives late (yakovenkoigor.blogspot.com/2019/07/blog-post_5.html).
Yakovenko provides what he says is
an incomplete list of Putin’s late arrivals, including more than four years in the
case of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovich, and more than three hours for US Secretary of State John Kerry, and
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Putin has been late for meetings of
all kinds. His former wife Lyudmila recalls in her memoirs that “I was never
late, but Vladimir Vladimirovich always was. An hour and a half was the norm. I
remember how I stood at the metro. The first 15 minutes of waiting was normal,
a half hour also. But hen an hour passed, and he hadn’t appeared, I began to cry.”
Some people are never punctual,
Yakovenko continues, but Putin isn’t one of those. He is on time when it serves
his interests and he will make people wait when he feels that gives him a
psychological advantage. Someone who is systematically late is stealing the time
of others. “That is, he is a thief” and one demonstratively so.
One of the few foreign leaders who
responded appropriately was Israel’s Shimon Peres. Putin made him wait for an
hour and a half; and so at their next scheduled meeting, Peres made Putin wait
the same length of time according to the principle of “an eye for an eye,”
Yakovenko says.
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