Vladimir Putin has kept the US President waiting for a whole hour ahead of a major call between the two powers.

The Russian President even laughed when he noticed he was getting late for the crunch talks.

Before the meeting with Donald Trump, he was addressing industrialists and businessmen at a national event in Moscow.

The national conference was scheduled in ahead of the Ukraine crunch talks were due to take place between 4pm and 6pm Russian local time.

REUTERS

Yet, the despot was not in a hurry to return to hop on the phone with the Republican.

Putin ally and event host Alexander Shokhin checked his watch and alerted the President that the call would be held soon.

Seemingly unconcerned, Putin joked: "Don't listen to him! That's his job."

He appeared to be referring to the Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Shokhin responded: "Now we need to see what Trump says about this."