Though he's not exactly unique when it comes to world leaders throughout history,
President Vladimir Putin of Russia is one of the more intense meeting partners for heads of state.
Here are the biggest mistakes people make when meeting Vladimir Putin.
One of the most common tactics deployed
by President Vladimir Putin is simply to show up late.
"Hello, Vlad, it's Barack. I've been trying to call you all day. Where you been?"
"Sorry, sorry. I'd been playing iPhone game Candy Crush."
While this may make people like your punctual dad grind their teeth in frustration,
it's pretty clearly a power tactic that's been employed by Putin again
and again in order to make his counterpart sweat. According to Business Insider, Putin
kept President Donald Trump waiting for almost an hour before a 2018 summit in Helsinki, Finland.
That wasn't so bad compared to the hours that he makes officials from Ukraine wait, or the one time
he made the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel wait for a whopping four hours. Even Pope Francis
had to wait an hour to meet with Putin. It was likely cold comfort to Trump, who may have known
that others were taken more seriously by Putin. Queen Elizabeth II of England, for instance,
only had to wait 14 minutes for Putin to roll into their meeting, per Business Insider.
President Joe Biden's June 2021 summit with Putin was a little different, however.
Stanford professor and foreign policy expert Michael McFaul tweeted that he had seen the
summit schedule ahead of time, noting a key detail: Putin would arrive first. McFaul wrote,
"If Putin is late tomorrow. Biden won't be standing around awkwardly waiting."
It's not exactly a big political win but, when it comes to establishing a relationship
with the famously stance-conscious Putin, it's still a significant move.
Meetings with other leaders may lead directly to signed agreements and policy changes,
but that's not always the case. And, when it comes to summits and face-to-face encounters with Putin,
few analysts expect direct results every single time.
Rather, leaders who meet with him should expect to play a long game.
And what is that long game, exactly? It's not just about posturing — though it arguably is
when it comes to President Vladimir Putin and many other leaders — but it's also about
communication. Ambassador John J. Sullivan, who was appointed Ambassador to the Russian Federation
by President Trump in 2019, and who has since currently continued
in that role for the Biden administration, certainly says as such. Sullivan told CNN,
"We don't think of U.S.-Russia summits in terms of deliverables. We are thinking of
it as an opportunity to communicate what our intentions and capabilities are."
Perhaps it is more useful for us to think of a summit such as the June 2021 one between
President Joe Biden and Putin as the beginning or continuation of a conversation that will,
hopefully, yield good results later on. And, as the New York Times reports,
there's plenty of tension and a lot of work to do,
though both Biden and Putin claimed that their meeting was, quote, "constructive."
It seems that President Vladimir Putin and his team aren't above using intimidation tactics that
draw on an individual's everyday fears. Never mind that someone is an important political
leader who's there to discuss important issues and possibly even get something done about the matter.
How can they be intimidated and overpowered at the meeting? And what are their opinions on dogs?
Strange as this may seem, dogs became a bit of an issue during a 2007 meeting between
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Putin. According to the New Yorker, the incident in question happened
when the two were discussing energy issues in Putin's home in Sochi, Russia. His black lab
entered the room and sniffed Merkel. Putin surely knew that Merkel, who had been bitten
by a dog in 1995, was afraid of the animal. Yet, he reportedly sat back and casually said, quote,
"I'm sure it will behave itself" as Merkel continued the meeting in a rather tense mood.
Later, as the German press came to Merkel's defense, she told reporters,
"I understand why he has to do this — to prove he's a man [...] Russia has nothing,
no successful politics or economy. All they have is this."
Yet, in that moment of power play, Putin may well have assumed that he won on this small front,
regardless of Germany's later complaints — and all because of his large and intimidating pet dog.
One might get the sense that President Vladimir Putin is something of a bully on a geopolitical
scale, at least if you're on the receiving end of one of his grievances. Those barbs, according
to Jon Finer, who was the chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry from 2015 to 2017,
could often take the form of a list of complaints. As Finer told NPR,
"[The Russians] have a way of trying to start these meetings with a long litany of grievances,
going back sometimes decades."
That may be annoying to some diplomats, to be sure, but it can also be a crippling distraction
technique. After all, if a representative is there to talk about Russia's incursion into Ukraine
or its role in a civil war, then what good is it to talk about the Cold War?
Trying to fight back against these accusations, whether or not Putin has a point, is only
going to waste time and put the non-Russian negotiators on an uncomfortable defensive.
Instead, Finer argued, it's better to let Putin and his team air their grievances,
make a show of taking in their comments,
and then pivot to the matters at hand. Of course, people like President Biden should do so with the
understanding that Putin can genuinely believe in these issues. Finer told NPR,
"The Russians have a coherent worldview. And so to go in thinking that they are
irrational in these views I think is not a constructive way forward."
After a summit with President Vladimir Putin comes the press conference. In many ways, this
is an important move, not only because it lets the rest of the world know what happened, but it
also gives the respective world leaders a chance to position themselves and frame the narrative.
For many heads of state, giving Putin too much leeway to establish that narrative has backfired.
Take the post-summit presser after former President Donald Trump's Helsinki meeting
with Putin in July 2018. Per CNN, Trump appeared to side rather heartily with Putin,
denying Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S elections
and going against the findings of the U.S. intelligence community.
"I have President Putin. Uh, he just said it's not Russia.
I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be."
As former U.S. ambassador to Russia and Stanford professor Michael McFaul told NPR in 2021,
"Helsinki will go down in history as the
worst bilateral meeting between Russians and Americans ever."
That's not only because Trump appeared alarmingly dismissive of his own intelligence
reports, but also because he allowed Putin to get in ahead of him on the narrative.
"He's Putin's puppy."
President Joe Biden's June 2021 meeting with Putin seemed to draw lessons from this mistake, at least
in part. There was no joint press conference between the two leaders, but analysts fretted
over the fact that Putin would speak independently first, while Biden waited to speak until after
consulting with his own government officials. It's also worth noting that, unlike other leaders,
Putin pretty much has free reign to go straight to a press conference, as Axios has noted.
In his June 2021 summit with President Vladimir Putin,
President Joe Biden put the meeting deliberately later in his touring schedule,
well after other meetups with European leaders. He reportedly did so to have the "wind at his back,”
according to CNN, and to show increased political support for U.S. interests throughout the region.
That can be a pretty significant step, even though it may seem like a small thing to
outside observers. Putin is no fool, after all, and he would surely notice if other leaders
in Europe or elsewhere were rallying around Biden or another summit meeting counterpart.
Now, this is not exactly a bombastic tactic, nor is it an intimidating one,
but it can often be used to send a significant message. It's certainly been done before.
For instance, CNN reports that the United States had already
used this exact strategy ahead of a meeting with Chinese leaders earlier
in 2021. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken didn't go straight to Chinese Premier
Xi Jinping or other Chinese officials as he traveled from the United States.
Instead, he spent a little time traveling through the region and meeting with national leaders who
were more overtly friendly to the United States. He therefore showed that diplomatic support
for the Biden administration was relatively strong ahead of the big meeting with China.
President Joe Biden said that he believes President Vladimir Putin responds most to,
quote, "signs of strength" that are best communicated in person,
per a report from CNN. It seems a telephone call simply won't cut it in the political
one-on-one between two leaders, especially where the Russian president is concerned.
This is no time to be shy or coy, particularly when the leaders are discussing heavy topics
that include cyberterrorism, civil wars, and tension-filled economic agreements.
And, while some leaders tend to take a more gentle, moderated approach to meeting with Putin,
Biden takes a far different tack. Biden even
reportedly told Putin to his face during a 2011 meeting:
"I said, 'Mr. President, I'm looking into your eyes and you have no soul.'"
While some presidents or premiers might take exception to that, it seems that Putin was
unruffled by the blunt remark — perhaps because of the way in which it was delivered in person.
According to Biden, Putin appeared to be satisfied by the remark and even told Biden at that meeting
that, quote, "We understand each other." Yet, when Biden later told a reporter he believed Putin was
a, quote, "killer," the statement caused serious upset in Russia, leading to the recall of the U.S.
ambassador there. It could be that the lack of a direct meeting contributed to the controversy.
Meeting with a strong willed, intelligent, and canny premier like President Vladimir Putin is
tricky, to say the least. You need to balance the niceties of social interaction and diplomacy
with a certain measure of straightforward communication. Where other heads of state may
appreciate politeness and small talk, it seems that Putin is often more receptive to a certain
level of bluntness. CNN reports that, over the course of his diplomatic career, President Joe
Biden has repeatedly stated his less-than-glowing estimation of Putin to the Russian leader's face,
with surprisingly even-tempered reactions from the Russian president himself.
And with that sort of bluntness you also need to bring a serious tenacity.
Biden, it seems, has learned that you can't back down in front of Putin,
lest you both lose face and lose progress. As NPR notes, that basically means you have
to have a game plan and stick to it, dodging distraction and intimidation techniques to get
some semblance of progress moving. That also means not shying away from difficult topics.
Diplomacy is not a one-and-done sort of game. And it certainly isn't so when meeting with
leaders who like to play the long game, especially if their name happens to be
President Vladimir Putin. Meeting with Putin often appears to either be an opportunity for
a new leader to set the tone for their interactions with the Russian president,
or for an established head of state or diplomat to continue their ongoing efforts to get something
out of the political relationship between their country and Russia.
"Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin."
And so, while CNN reports that few, if any, leaders expect so-called "deliverables" from
a single meeting, neither should they think that things end when they walk out of the room.
Axios notes that dealing with Putin can prove pretty challenging for anyone,
especially when it comes to resolving conflicts and speaking about the meeting itself.
Furthermore, it's not as if some of the big issues that other leaders have pinpointed with
Russia's activities have ended after a single meeting. After all, as Michael McFaul told NPR,
"Putin has never admitted to a mistake ever in 20 years of running that country."
And so, Russian incursions into foreign territory, like their invasion of nearby
Georgia and parts of Ukraine, persist. Coming to some understanding and action
on these sorts of issues with the iron-willed and seemingly immovable Putin will almost certainly
never happen over the course of a single summit or presidential administration.
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