Monday, July 8, 2019

Putin is Only Late When He Thinks That Works for Him, Yakovenko Says


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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