Putin and Macron's meeting become an instant meme

French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin may not have made headlines for reaching an agreement to de-escalate the Ukrainian crisis, but the meeting did make a splash online for the countless memes it generated.

After five hours of negotiations with Putin and analysts suggesting that the meeting was largely a failure for Macron, the optics of the meeting and the subtleties of diplomatic slights became one of the main talking points of the encounter.

One regional observer summarised the meeting in stark terms: "So Macron flew to Moscow, talked with Putin for over 4 hours, became a meme and then listened to Putin threaten an all-out war and make a rape analogy about Ukraine?" 

Following the meeting, Putin failed to get Macron to agree on ending NATO enlargement or de-escalating tensions.

Despite the seriousness of the meeting, observers turned their attention to the abnormally long table that the two leaders sat on.

"There is more space between Macron and Putin than between the Russian troops and the Ukrainian borders," quipped one observer. 

While others turned the oversized table into a badminton court.

Another observer analysed body language saying, "Macron's effort to reach out and work out something together has not been reciprocated by Putin, who did everything to look bored and didn't sound constructive at all at the press conference." 

But perhaps the biggest snub to Macron was at the airport where the French president was not afforded a motorcade at his plane and instead was forced to go through the terminal.

And in another not-so-subtle reminder that Moscow was in no mood for giving Macron the red carpet treatment, it kept him waiting for almost two hours before Putin was ready to see him.

Another observer contrasted Putin's frosty and socially distanced welcome of Macron, the two leaders didn't shake hands, with the Russian president's warm and cordial meeting only days earlier with Chinese president Xi Jinping.