Many believe that history is largely determined by the personal relationships between world leaders. Vladimir Putin's 25-year interactions with foreign leaders provide a fascinating case study in this theory.
The President of Russia recently invited Narendra Modi for a private dinner at his home, and the Prime Minister of India stated that he was very moved by this gesture. China's Xi Jinping called Putin his best friend. At the 2024 BRICS summit, Putin said such friendships were the basis of a “new world order.”
In the past, more hostile leaders were treated differently.
There is evidence that Putin, for example, played psychological games with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At a meeting in Sochi in 2007 to discuss energy supplies to Europe, the Russian president brought his large Labrador with him. Putin knew that Merkel was terrified of dogs – the result of a dog attack many years earlier – and this worried her during the conversation.
IN Putin's journeynew two-hour CBC documentary marking his quarter-century in power, former Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said he was shocked by Putin's behavior toward Merkel.
“It speaks to the dark nature of this man, a character flaw that transcends all boundaries in diplomacy and just 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 Lithuanian journalist working for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, said that “he clearly wants to dominate all the time. He wants to prove that he's the toughest guy in the room. He always has to have someone to humiliate.” “
Putin's treatment of foreign leaders seems to be driven by the knowledge that he will outlive them. Plays the long game to achieve the desired results. And he's probably happy to have Donald Trump back as US president, especially since Trump has said so many negative things about Ukraine and NATO.
Luke Harding, former head of the Guardian's Moscow bureau and author of, among others, Invasion: the inside story of Russia's bloody war and Ukraine's fight for survivalsays Putin, “believes Western leaders are gullible and short-lived.”
“They're sort of like colorful butterflies that flutter around for a while and then disappear when winter comes. While Putin, who we know is close to outlasting Stalin, doesn't have to worry about annoying things like elections and knows what he'll be doing in two or four years.
“We misjudged Putin.”
Shortly after Putin became president in 2000, George W. Bush was elected president of the United States. He met Putin at a summit in Slovenia, where he shared an immediate assessment of his Russian counterpart, famously saying: “I looked into this man's eyes… I managed to feel his soul.”
“I think George W. Bush regrets saying that now because it's not clear where exactly Putin's soul is,” John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser who has met repeatedly with Putin.
“But (the comment) indicated optimism stemming from our sense that the Cold War was over, that we could find a way to overcome our differences and work together against what we perceived as common threats,” Bolton said. “I think in hindsight we see that we misjudged Putin.”
Former Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay talks about the disastrous meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
It seemed that not only Americans had fallen under Putin's spell. During a visit to the UK in 2003, he was treated like royalty, traveling through London in a horse-drawn carriage alongside the Queen. It was a shock for Russian dissident journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza.
“Literally the same week that Vladimir Putin's government shut down the last independent TV channel (in Russia), he had a lavish state visit to London and a ride with the Queen of England,” Kara-Murza told CBC.
He points out that Putin also ordered political opponents to be arrested and imprisoned. “It was clear from the very beginning, and yet… Western democratic countries have deliberately chosen to turn a blind eye to all these domestic authoritarian abuses.”
CBC asked Putin for an interview, but his press secretary declined the invitation.
Greater interest in Ukraine
Starting in 2012, Putin increased his strength in relations with Western countries, which became evident during his first private meeting with then-French President Francois Hollande. Putin was concerned about NATO's expansion in Eastern Europe and the missiles installed there.
As Hollande told CBC: “He asked for a piece of paper, which is quite rare when heads of state meet. And he drew a map of Europe on it and placed rockets on it placed in the central part of Europe. directly threatened his safety Already I wanted to play the victim role – “I am being attacked” – to better justify what he could do to supposedly defend himself.”
Hollande was struck by Putin's psychological tactics during their personal meetings. “It is no coincidence that he trained in the KGB. The KGB was all about “I threaten you, but I also embrace you in an almost personal relationship.” I always play a double game: “I'm threatening you, but I'm ready to talk.”
By 2013, Putin turned his attention back to Ukraine, calling on pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych to cancel a proposed new treaty with Europe. Most of Ukraine's pro-Western population revolted, and Kiev's Maidan was filled with anti-Russian protesters, incited by European and American politicians.
Yanukovych tried to suppress the Maidan protests with police violence, but the demonstrators did not budge. After many victims, Yanukovych fled the country by helicopter in the middle of the night.
Political journalist Sheftalowicz claims that it was a strong blow to Putin.
“He saw Ukraine as part of Russia and Euro Maidan as essentially the first part of a potential uprising that could ultimately result in his removal from power. Therefore, it was unacceptable to him that Euro Maidan broke in and that these protestors removed his man from his job.”
During the joyous celebrations in Kiev, Putin planned revenge. He decided to partition Ukraine, occupying the Crimean Peninsula in the south and most of the Russian-speaking areas in the east of the country. In 2014, he sent Russian soldiers to Crimea without any markings on their uniforms. They became known as “little green men”.
When asked about them, Putin replied that they had nothing to do with Russia. Meanwhile, Russian soldiers and Russian-backed separatists began attacks on the Ukrainian army in the eastern Russian-speaking areas of Donbas.
Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion who left the sport to oppose Putin's regime, saw Crimea as a turning point.
“It was the best way to tell the West that, you know, it doesn't play by the rules anymore…Annexation of territory is just a very important element in the destruction of the world order. Dictators are opportunists. Even Hitler was an opportunist or Stalin. That's what made them really strong. So smell it, grab it and attack it.”
Disastrous G20 meeting
Once again, the West's response to Putin's actions appeared weak. He continued to be invited to the commemoration 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 president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, was also present. Putin agreed to a short meeting with Poroshenko, who knew what he was dealing with.
“I have some recommendations for those who are planning to meet Putin,” he told CBC. “Point No. 1: don't trust Putin. He's a KGB officer who has specially learned to lie. Secondly, please do not be afraid of Putin, because if you are afraid of Putin, he feeds him. Putin will only go as far as we together allow him.”
A few months later, at the G20 meeting in Australia, then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took a tough approach.
According to MacKay, “Vladimir Putin walked into this private session with other world leaders and immediately went to see our Prime Minister…who has been quite vocal about Putin and his apparent plans for Crimea. Putin moved towards him, held out his hand… Prime Minister Harper then looked at him and said, “You have to get out of Crimea.” And Putin said: “We are not in Crimea.”
“It was the beginning of the end of Russia's participation in the G8 because everyone in the room knew he was lying.”
Amid mounting casualties and a stalemate in the war with Ukraine, Putin appears to have returned to his waiting game as he watches the term of President Joe Biden, who led NATO's campaign to defend Ukraine, end.
While many Western leaders were shocked by Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Hollande said: “There is a great misunderstanding between Europeans and Putin, and more broadly the West and Putin.
“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 disconnect. We are a peaceful, democratic nation that does not like death. But for Putin, death is part of the action.”
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