Many believe that history is largely determined by the personal relationships between world leaders. Vladimir Putin’s 25 years of interaction with foreign leaders provides a fascinating case study of this theory.
The Russian President recently invited Narendra Modi to a private dinner at his home and the Indian Prime Minister was very touched by the gesture. China’s Xi Jinping has called Putin his best friend. At the 2024 BRICS summit, Putin said friendships like these were the basis for a “new world order.”
In the past, more controversial leaders have been treated differently.
For example, there were indications that Putin was playing psychological games with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At a 2007 meeting in Sochi to discuss energy supplies to Europe, the Russian president brought his large Labrador with him. Putin knew that Merkel was very afraid of dogs – the result of a dog attack years ago – and this unsettled her during their conversation.
In Putin’s journeyIn a new two-hour CBC documentary about his quarter-century in power, former Canadian foreign minister Peter MacKay said he was shocked by Putin’s behavior toward Merkel.
“It shows a dark nature, a character flaw in this man who transcends all boundaries in matters of diplomacy and human nature,” MacKay said.
Soviet-born Australian journalist Zoya Sheftalovich, writing for Politico Europe, told CBC that Putin “is well-informed, he knows what people’s buttons are and he pushes them.”
Konstantin Eggert, a Lithuania-based journalist who works for Deutsche Welle, said: “He obviously wants to dominate all the time. He wants to prove he’s the toughest guy in the room. He always has to have someone to humiliate.”
Putin’s interactions with foreign leaders seem to be shaped by the knowledge that he will outlive them. He plays a long game to get the results he wants. And he is probably happy about Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency, especially since Trump has said so many negative things about Ukraine and NATO.
Luke Harding, former Guardian Moscow bureau chief and author of Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survivalsays Putin, “thinks Western leaders are gullible and short-lived.”
“They’re a kind of colorful butterflies that flutter around for a while and then get wiped out when winter comes. Whereas Putin, who we know is on the verge of outliving Stalin, doesn’t have to worry about pesky things like elections, and he knows what he’s going to do in two, four years.
“We completely misjudged Putin”
Shortly after Putin became president in 2000, George W. Bush was elected president of the United States. He arrived to meet Putin at a summit in Slovenia, where he shared his immediate assessment of his Russian counterpart, famously saying: “I looked the man in the eyes… I could get a feel for his soul.”
“I think George W. Bush now regrets saying that because it’s not clear where exactly Putin’s soul is,” said John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser who met Putin several times , told CBC.
“But (the comment) showed optimism that we felt the Cold War was over, that we could find a way to bridge the differences and act together against what we saw as common threats,” Bolton said . “I think in retrospect we can see that we completely misjudged Putin.”
Former Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay discusses a fateful meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
It wasn’t just the Americans who seemed to have fallen under Putin’s spell. During a visit to the United Kingdom in 2003, he was given the royal treatment as he toured London in a horse-drawn carriage alongside the Queen. It was a shock for Russian dissident journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza.
“Literally in the same week that Vladimir Putin’s government pulled the plug on the last independent television channel (in Russia), he was invited to a lavish state visit to London and a trip with the Queen of England,” Kara-Murza told CBC .
He points out that Putin also had political opponents arrested and imprisoned. “It was clear from the start, and yet… Western democratic countries have consciously chosen to turn a blind eye to all of these domestic authoritarian abuses.”
CBC requested an interview with Putin, but his press secretary declined the invitation.
Greater interest in Ukraine
Starting in 2012, Putin took a more forceful approach toward Western countries, which was evident in his first private meeting with then-French President Francois Hollande. Putin was concerned about NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe and the missiles installed there.
Hollande told CBC: “He asked for a piece of paper, which is quite rare in a meeting between heads of state. And on it he drew a map of Europe and placed on it the missiles that were stationed in the central part of Europe.” He directly threatened his safety already wanted to play the victim — “I’m being attacked” — to better justify what he might have to do to supposedly defend himself.”
Hollande was impressed by Putin’s psychological tactics during their personal meetings. “It is no coincidence that he was trained by the KGB. The KGB was all about ‘I threaten you, but I also embrace you in an almost personal relationship.’ Always playing the double game: ‘I’m threatening you, but I’m ready to talk.'”
In 2013, Putin turned his attention back to Ukraine, urging pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych to abandon a planned new treaty with Europe. Ukraine’s predominantly pro-Western population rebelled and Kiev’s Maidan Square filled with anti-Russian demonstrators, egged on by European and American politicians.
Yanukovych tried to crush the Maidan protest with police force, but the demonstrators held out. After many victims, Yanukovych fled the country in a helicopter in the middle of the night.
Politico journalist Sheftalovich says it was a big blow for Putin.
“He viewed Ukraine as part of Russia, and he viewed Euro-Maidan as essentially the first part of a possible uprising that could eventually end in his removal from power. Therefore, it was unacceptable to him that Euro-Maidan had broken in and that these protests had removed his man from his job.”
Amid joyful celebrations in Kyiv, Putin plotted his revenge. He had decided to break up Ukraine by conquering the Crimean peninsula in the south and the predominantly Russian-speaking areas in the east of the country. In 2014, he sent Russian soldiers to Crimea without any badges on their uniforms. They became known as the “little green men.”
When asked about this, Putin said they had nothing to do with Russia. Meanwhile, Russian soldiers and Russian-backed separatists began attacking the Ukrainian army in the eastern Russian-speaking areas of Donbas.
Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion who gave up the sport to campaign against Putin’s regime, saw Crimea as a turning point.
“It was the best way to tell the West that it was no longer playing by the rules…Annexation of territories is just one very important factor in the destruction of the world order. Dictators, they are opportunists. Even Hitler was an opportunist.”, or Stalin. That really made her strong. So smell it, touch it.
A fateful G20 meeting
Once again, the Western reaction to Putin’s actions appeared weak. He was nevertheless invited to the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy in France in June 2014. Hollande welcomed him as a guest of honor.
The new, pro-Western Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was also there. Putin agreed to a brief meeting with Poroshenko, who knew what he was dealing with.
“I have several recommendations for those planning to meet with Putin,” he told CBC. “Point No. 1: Don’t trust Putin. He is a KGB officer who has particularly learned to lie. Second: Please don’t be afraid of Putin, because if you are afraid of Putin, that will feed him. Putin will do it.” Only go as far as we let him go together.
At a G20 meeting a few months later in Australia, then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried a tough approach.
According to MacKay, “Vladimir Putin came to this private meeting with other world leaders and immediately went to our prime minister…who had been quite vocal about Putin and his apparent plans for Crimea. Putin came right up to him, held out his hand…Prime Minister Harper then looked at him and said, “You have to leave Crimea.” And Putin said, “We’re not in Crimea.”
“That was the beginning of the end for Russia’s participation in the G8 summit because everyone in the room knew he was lying.”
With casualties mounting and the stalemate in the war with Ukraine, Putin appears to have returned to his waiting game as he watched the term expire of President Joe Biden, who led the NATO campaign to defend Ukraine.
While many Western leaders were shocked by Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Hollande said: “There is a big misunderstanding between the Europeans and Putin and, more broadly, between the West and Putin.”
“The Europeans don’t want to go to war. For them, war has a terrible history, the history of the 20th century, and there is no reason to believe that war is possible on the continent today.”
“But for Putin, war is possible. That’s the separation.” We are peaceful, democratic nations that do not like death. For Putin, however, death is part of the event.”
VIEW | The full documentary Putin’s Journey:
