Duterte cut off not once, but twice in Sochi forum: Russians can’t stand his rambling statements

President Rodrigo Duterte was his rambling and extemporaneous self during the forum of Russian think-tank Valdai International, in Sochi Thursday night.

What Duterte didn’t anticipate was that the moderator and the audience, which included President Vladimir Putin, were not ready to sit through his long-windedness.

When Duterte veered away from the main question – how did he manage to reshape the country’s foreign policy from American-centric to one that is open to China and Russia – and touched on the killings, drug war and religion, the moderator butted in.

“Mr. President, I’m very sorry. I have a reputation in the Valdai Club to be very impolite. So I’m sorry I’m intervening but maybe we’ll go ahead and then come back to you,” the moderator said.

Duterte insisted he had a few more minutes left to answer and went on rambling. A few minutes later, Duterte gave way and the moderator said: “ Probably, after the (forum) we can have questions from the hall,” the moderator said.

In the second part of the forum, Putin asked Duterte: “No, seriously. No joke. President Duterte, can you actually equal west to the east? And can we talk about sort of a unisex approach so to say? East and west, this division. Is this a thing of the past or it’s a natural division to have west versus east?”

Duterte said it would take four generations for Filipinos to get over the East and West divide and rambled on about colonies and propaganda, the moderator cut him off anew: “Mr. President, can you wrap up?”