Donald Trump was left red-faced after Vladimir Putin kept him “waiting for an hour” before accepting his call.
The Russian president appeared to take a page directly of Mr Trump’s “Art of the Deal” in an attempt to exert power over his western rival this week when the two were scheduled to call one another earlier today. The call has been long in the works, with the two leaders set to negotiate the fate of Ukraine after three years of war amid turbulent ceasefire discussions involving multiple nations.
It followed an in-person Moscow tete a tete between Putin and Steve Witkoff, the US President’s superstar negotiator, who was reportedly kept waiting for over eight hours before the two spoke last week. Now, it appears the Russian despot repeated his tactic with Trump, who reportedly participated in the call an hour after it was scheduled.
Russian state news agency Tass reported that Putin was participating in an event with the Russian Union of Industrialists Entrepreneurs today, which he didn’t leave until around 1.52pm UK time. The call with Trump, however, was meant to take place nearly an hour earlier – between 1pm and 2pm.
The White House confirmed in a statement that the call wasn’t taken until 2pm, meaning the US Commander-in-Chief was kept waiting for an hour. The significant wait – a not unusual ploy from Putin – was a repeat of what happened ahead of the meeting with Mr Witkoff on March 14.
The Russian premier indulged in a “classic Putin power play” on Friday when Mr Witkoff’s motorcade pulled into the Moscow Vnukovo Airport. The envoy was meant to deliver Trump’s proposals for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but was kept waiting for eight hours – two thirds of the 12 hours he was meant to spend in Russia – waiting.
The move, considered extremely disrespectful in diplomatic circles, came as Putin reportedly had a meeting wih Belarusian premier Alexander Lukashenko, “Europe’s last dictator”. He had arrived for a hastily arranged visit on Thursday, meaning Mr Witkoff was unable to depart Russia until after nightfall, leaving the airport at approximately 2am before it was shuttered by a Ukrainian strike.
Tuesday’s call comes after Ukrainian officials last week agreed to the American proposal during talks in Saudi Arabia led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remains sceptical that Putin is ready for peace as Russian forces continue to pound Ukraine.
Trump, before the call, said he expected to discuss with Putin land and power plants that have been seized during the three-year war. The engagement is just the latest turn in dramatically shifting US-Russia relations, as Trump made quickly ending the conflict a top priority, even at the expense of straining ties with longtime American allies who want Putin to pay a price for the invasion.
“It’s a bad situation in Russia, and it’s a bad situation in Ukraine,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “What’s happening in Ukraine is not good, but we’re going to see if we can work a peace agreement, a ceasefire and peace. And I think we’ll be able to do it.”
The US president said Washington and Moscow have already begun discussing “dividing up certain assets” between Ukraine and Russia as part of a deal to end the conflict. Trump, who during his campaign pledged to quickly end the war, has at moments boasted of his relationship with Putin and blamed Ukraine for Russia’s unprovoked invasion, all while accusing Zelensky of unnecessarily prolonging the biggest land war in Europe since the Second World War. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that Trump and Putin would discuss the war in Ukraine but added that there are also a “large number of questions” regarding normalising US-Russia relations.
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