Russian President Vladimir Putin, known for making world leaders wait, once again lived up to his reputation and delayed a phone call with US President Donald Trump. The scheduled call between him and Trump was set to begin between 4 pm and 6 pm Russian time (6.30 pm to 8.30 pm IST). Putin was attending a conference with Russian business leaders in Moscow at the time and reportedly showed no urgency in leaving the event, keeping his American counterpart waiting for over an hour.
At the Moscow event, Putin engaged in discussions with industrialists and business tycoons when Alexander Shokhin, the head of the Russian Union for Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, took note of the time, reported The Sun.
Shokhin pointed out that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced that it was past 4 pm Moscow time — the designated slot for Putin’s call with Trump.
In video footage from the event, Shokhin is seen asking Putin if he would be late, referencing Peskov’s statement about the scheduled call.
Instead of rushing to the Kremlin, Putin casually dismissed the concern with a joke, according to the report. He said, “Don’t listen to him! That’s his job,” while shrugging, eliciting laughter from the audience.
Shokhin, a former deputy prime minister under Putin, responded, “Now, we need to see what Trump says about this.”
Putin, still smiling, replied, “I didn’t mention Trump. I was talking about Peskov.”
Watch the clip here:
Putin is meant to be speaking to Trump around now, but he is talking to a room full of oligarchs instead. Asked if he’s going to be late, Putin waves off the question and says not to listen to his spokesman pic.twitter.com/LDTU8BNQAr
— max seddon (@maxseddon) March 18, 2025
Despite the phone call being a highly anticipated diplomatic exchange, Putin did not leave the Moscow International Music Hall immediately. Instead, he continued with his engagement, ultimately leaving the venue at around 5 pm Russian time (7.30 pm IST), a full hour after the scheduled start of his telephonic conversation with Trump.
The main focus of the discussion was expected to be the ongoing war in Ukraine, amid US-led negotiations for a ceasefire.
Trump earlier expressed optimism about securing a 30-day truce, claiming there was a “very good chance” of convincing Putin to agree to the proposal, which had already received approval from Kyiv.
What Donald Trump said about the call with Vladimir Putin
The call between the two leaders eventually lasted nearly two hours, according to Fox News. The call with Putin was “great”, Trump said during an exclusive interview with Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle.
Speaking about the call, the US President referred to Russia’s three-year war against Ukraine and said, “[We] talked about a lot of things — toward getting it to peace, and we talked about other things also.”
Despite the phone call with Trump, Putin did not immediately agree to an unconditional ceasefire. He said on March 18 that Moscow would pause strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days instead of committing to a full cessation of hostilities.
But just an hour after the Kremlin’s statement, a Russia-guided bomb struck the Ukrainian city of Slovyansk, knocking out power, according to Wall Street Journal chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov.