Vladimir Putin was filmed tickling the ivories at a state residence in China on Sunday. In the country to discuss a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, the Russian president was waiting for a meeting to begin with Chinese President Xi Jinping when he sat down at a piano to pick out a few Russian tunes.

“It’s a pity that the piano was out of tune,” Putin said at a news briefing in Beijing, the ABC reported. “It was quite hard to play, even for me, someone who plays with two fingers.”

“I cannot say I played, I was just pressing the keys with two or three fingers,” he said. “I thought that if Mr Peskov [Putin’s spokesperson] is filming, it’s probably for personal use, for the archive.”

“But they decided to post it,” he said. “But never mind. I think I didn’t let you down.”

Putin’s choice of repertoire was nostalgic, the ex-KGB agent playing pieces from his childhood growing up in Soviet Russia: Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi’s Evening Song – considered an unofficial anthem of St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) where Putin grew up, and Moscow Windows by Tikhon Khrennikov, who was the Secretary of the Union of...