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AWKWARD! Vladimir Putin left waiting for Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 'sweet payback'

The encounter was captured on video and the footage shows Putin fidgeting, shifting his weight, and making a series of uncomfortable looks

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has been left awkwardly standing in a room in front of reporters while waiting to meet his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The encounter was captured on video on Tuesday, July 19, and footage shows Putin fidgeting, shifting his weight, and making a series of uncomfortable looks for about a minute before being ultimately met by Erdoan. It was unfamiliar territory for the Russian leader, who has earned a reputation for purposefully delaying the start of scheduled conversations with international leaders, sometimes for hours. Some speculated it may have been payback for a 2020 meeting in Moscow that saw Erdoğan wait so long to enter the meeting room that he took a seat.

Reporters captured the moment Putin strode into the room on Tuesday, July 19, with the expectation Erdoğan would swiftly follow suit. Instead, he was left standing amid the sound of camera shutters. The Russian leader was spotted shuffling his feet and licking his cheeks during the 50-second wait while holding his hands in front of him. Finally, with a hint of frustration, Putin let his hands drop by his sides as Erdoan stepped out and the two shook hands.

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According to Joyce Karam, senior correspondent of Middle Eastern news outlet National News, “Those 50 seconds that Erdoğan made Putin wait, looking frazzled in front of cameras say plenty of how much has changed after Ukraine.” The exchange, according to Karam, was Erdogan's ‘sweet payback’ for Putin leaving the Turkish president waiting for almost two minutes prior to a meeting in 2020. At the time, footage widely disseminated by Russian news agencies showed Erdoan and his entourage were made to wait outside in an antechamber, humiliating them, according to Turkish media.

Meanwhile, Erdoğan currently has been leading efforts to broker a deal to allow thousands of tonnes of grain that is being blockaded by Russia to leave Ukraine’s ports. According to the 1936 Montreux convention, Turkey, a member of NATO, is specifically responsible for naval traffic entering the Black Sea. It suggests that Russia permits grain ships from Ukraine to depart Odesa via predetermined routes, subject to verification that the ships are not transporting armaments.

Putin thanked Erdogan for serving as a mediator and noted that some progress had been achieved, but he was less taken aback by his plans to create a buffer zone south of the Turkish-Syrian border. Erdoğan claims the buffer zone would shield Turkey from attacks by Syrian Kurds and maintains it is ‘not possible to expect Turkey to sit idle and aloof from this problem.’ According to the Daily Mail, Some have hypothesized that Putin's tendency to arrive late for meetings with world leaders is a psychological strategy he has employed since the beginning of his administration. In 2003, Putin was 14 minutes late for the Queen, and a year prior, he kept waiting for two hours at a cemetery for the parents of children murdered in an aircraft tragedy.

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In June 2015, Putin arrived an hour late for his meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican. Before a meeting with the Russian president that was supposed to take place in Helsinki in 2018, the US president at the time, Donald Trump, was kept waiting for 45 minutes. According to Radio Free Europe, Viktor Yanukovych once waited four hours before meeting with Putin while he was the president of Ukraine, while Angela Merkel was kept waiting for four hours and fifteen minutes in 2014.