Vladimir Putin has faced humiliation as he was forced to be kept waiting at a summit following his Ukraine invasion.
Keeping world leaders waiting has been, until now, a trademark tactic by Putin, especially deployed against Western leaders.
But increasingly he is getting a dose of his own medicine as his diplomatic standing has plunged due to his bloody war in Ukraine.
He had meetings scheduled with the Emir of Qatar and separately with the president of Tajikistan.
But Putin was left chatting with his loyal foreign minister Sergei Lavrov along with Gazprom boss Alexey Miller and ex-spy and close friend of the president Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft.
Footage showed how Putin was left kicking his heels until Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani arrived for their session.
He then had to turn his back to the arriving emir and scuttle back to his chair as the sheikh swept in for a handshake.
ChTD Telegram channel reported: “The ever-late Putin is now in perpetual waiting - at a summit in Kazakhstan, he was made to wait again, this time by the Emir of Qatar.”
At another session Putin was also made to wait, this time by the president of Tajikistan, one of the poorest ex-Soviet states, Emomali Rahmon, who like the Russian leader recently turned 70.
This time Putin was left talking to the president of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, ahead of the trilateral session which included veteran ruler Rahmon, in power since 1994.
The meetings were on the sidelines of the sixth Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), a summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The session with the Emir of Qatar was billed as a bid to “smooth over tensions” which have emerged since Putin’s partial invasion of Ukraine.
The Doha ruler “emphasised support for all international and regional efforts to find an immediate peaceful solution to the Ukraine crisis ” but also “affirmed the necessity of respecting the sovereignty of states”.
Qatar aims to play a role as a conflict mediator.
Yet it voted at this week’s overwhelming UN General Assembly ballot to condemn Putin’s annexation of Ukraine.
Neither Tajikistan nor Kyrgyzstan - often loyal to Moscow - supported Putin in the vote.
They both abstained, a stinging blow to the warmonger from countries he sees as being in his sphere of influence, and on whose support he can normally count.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan started the ploy of keeping Putin waiting.
At a summit in Iran in July he delighted Ukrainians with a 48-second snub.
Kremlin sources claimed Putin had “arrived early” for the Qatar session.
