Apologizing is believed to be a sign of weakness in the Russian political tradition. Our rulers don’t like to apologize, and their subject follow their example.
Putin an exception
President Putin often comes across as an exception from this. He apologized publicly several times—but he does it only before people he deems clearly below his station.
The most high-profiled apologies of Putin;
- 2002: The most publicly known incidence of polictical apology on the part of President Putin, after the botched attempt to save the hostages of the so-called “Nord-Ost” terror act. It was before the arrest of Khodorkovsky and the subsequent recognition of Putin as an indisputed head and arbiter of all matters Russian, and he used the expression “forgive us”, instead of the more traditional “me” he stuck to afterwards.
- 2004: Putin paid a birthday visit to a renown actress in St. Petersburg, and apologized for being too busy to attend her mono-play.
- 2011: Putin apologized to residents of Sochi for the inconveniences caused by the preparations to the Sochi Olympics in 2014.
- 2012: Apologies from Putin to Moscovites annoyed by the frequent traffic chaos caused by the government motorcades
- 2013: An apology to people affected by a natural disaster in the Far East for a substandard effort on the part of the rescue services.
- 2015: To Elton John, for two pranksters who called the pop-star and made him think he talked to Putin.
- 2016: Putin apologized to WWII veterans for the modern youth who not always pay them the respect they deserve.
- 2016: Putin apologized to the family of Boris Karlov, the assassinated Russian ambassador to Turkey, for not being able to protect the diplomat.
- 2017, June: Putin apologized to his audience for not being able to answer all questions during his annual televized Q&A session
- 2017, August: to the Japanese PM Abe, for being late from the meeting with President Trump
Compilation
A few years back, the magazine Esquire set up a list of all known Putin’s apologies between 2000 and 2009 (Link in Russian, no later stats are available).
The picture below visualized how many times Putin apologized during official arrangements. Sum total: 145 apologies during 10 years. (Includes instances when Putin was heard using the Russian equivalents of “sorry”, “excuse me”, “forgive me”, “I beg your pardon” etc.)