How Putin and Kim’s awkward 40 second handshake compares to Trump and Macron

Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un have met in Russia for the first time since 2019 and stood awkwardly sharing a lengthy 40 second handshake.

Putin welcomed Kim to the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a space station and satellite launch facility, in Amur, eastern Russia, on Wednesday.

As the duo met face to face the Russian president said he was “very glad to see” Kim and the North Korean dictator thanked him for the warm welcome “despite being busy.”

As the translators worked to communicate the respective welcome messages, Putin and Kim continued to stare at each other and shake hands.

Analysing the handshake, behavioural psychologist Darren Stanton said: “Even though the clips are quite short of their interactions, we can still see a few interesting gestures between the two men.

“First of all we have the first handshake as Putin exits the car. It is clear that Putin proceeds himself and wants to be perceived as a stronger force. His first move is to advance very closely to Kim and give him a ‘bone crusher’ handshake - a stronger shake than normal to assert authority, something many powerful figures implement - most notably attributed to President Trump during his time in office.

“The handshake is a very powerful indicator of how someone is thinking - because it is an opening gesture that acts as a first impression. So from the outset we could see that Putin has come to talk business and not waste any time.”

It’s not the first the Putin has found himself in a masculine battle for dominance when shaking hands.

When meeting Donald Trump in Helsinki in July 2018, Putin visibly used his non shaking hand to brace himself by grabbing the chair to prepare for the former US president’s tendency to grab and pull people towards him.

In Putin’s first meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron in May 2017 there wasn’t such a masculine tussle for dominance, but rather a tense, awkward handshake.

And at the G20 summit in Japan in June 2019, Putin had another odd handshake with former British prime minister Theresa May as the duo refused to smile or look at each other.

World’s away from the intimiacy of a handshake, the Russian leader also has a tendency to welcome world leaders on an extremely long meeting table, such as his tete-a-tete with Macron in Februrary 2022.

Olga Khvostunova, director of the Institute of Modern Russia – a US-based think tank – said the reason for these long table meetings was to make world leaders “uncomfortable” and “to show who is boss in these situations.”

Putin has often cultivated a macho image and in the past has frequently been pictured in sterotypically masculine poses, such as wearing combat fatigues while clutching a large fish he has allegedly caught.

Perhaps his most well-known display of unchecked masculinity was photos of him topless, stripped to the waist, riding a horse in southern Siberia.

The handshake is just another part of Putin’s hardman image he has carefully cultivated for many years. In 2015 after he went missing for a week after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on March 5, amid rumours he was unwell.

His spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to say where Putin was, but said not only was he in good spirits but he was “breaking hands” with his robust handshake, as reported by the Washington Post.