Putin surprisingly arrives on time for meeting with Biden

Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden
(Image credit: DENIS BALIBOUSE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have officially commenced their summit in Geneva — and, surprisingly, Putin was actually on time for it.

Putin arrived "almost exactly on time" for his meeting with Biden at 1:04 p.m. local time in Geneva on Wednesday, The Washington Post reports. The timing caught pundits' attention given that, as former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul noted, Putin "has a habit of showing up late for meetings."

The Russian president, for example, was 45 minutes late when he met with former President Donald Trump in Helsinki in 2018, and he was also three hours late for a meeting with then-Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013 and over four hours late for a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2014, the Post reports.

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ABC News' Jonathan Karl took note of the timing of Putin's arrival on Wednesday, explaining, "I can't tell you how many events between the Americans and the Russians that I've gone to where Putin has kept the Americans waiting. It's a power play." But Karl pointed to Putin arriving on time for this summit as "one indication" that he "wants to turn the temperature down on this conflict."

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan is a staff writer at The Week. A graduate of Hofstra University with a degree in journalism, he also writes about horror films for Bloody Disgusting and has previously contributed to The Cheat Sheet, Heavy, WhatCulture, and more. He lives in New York City surrounded by Star Wars posters.