Speaking in German, “in the language of Goethe, Schiller and Kant,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said from the Bundestag’s podium in Berlin in 2001: “Russia is a friendly European country. “Peace in Europe remains our primary goal.” The Russian leader, who was elected a year earlier at the age of 47 after a meteoric rise, went on to talk about democratic rights and freedoms in Russia. Members of the federal parliament warmly applauded his speech, seeing in his face a symbol of reconciliation in the aftermath of the Cold War. “It simply came to our notice then. “His voice in German was soft and gave the impression of a sincere approach,” said then-CDU MP Norbert Retgen.
Today, the fellowship no longer exists. Ukraine is on fire and Putin has set out to prove that Ukrainian national identity is a myth. The once bland voice of the Russian leader hardened, today characterizing every Russian dissident as a “scum and traitor.” Putin’s opponents – a “5th phalanx” manipulated by the West – will end badly, he said earlier this month. True Russians will reject dissidents, “achieving the necessary disinfection of society,” the president said, referring less to Kant’s language and more to the words of fascist-blind nationalists.
The two voices mediated 22 years of Putin’s rule. Did the US and its allies fall so far short of their initial assessments of Putin? Or has the Russian president transformed over time into the vengeful, warlike leader we face today? Putin remains enigmatic. The risky operation in Ukraine, however, shows that the Kremlin resident believes that he has identified with Russia, manifesting almost Messianic tendencies and a vision of imperial restoration.
The collapse of the USSR and the pirate entrepreneurship of the Yeltsin years plagued Putin’s instincts as a former KGB agent and admirer of the powerful state. Putin, however, did not adopt a Marxist view of history, as he proved by collaborating with the newly wealthy oligarchs, as long as they showed absolute obedience. In 2000, during a discussion with Bill Clinton, Putin spoke about the prospect of Russia joining NATO, and instituted a Russia-NATO Council in 2002.
Fragile balances
Maintaining such fragile balances would be difficult for anyone except Putin. “He comes from the KGB, lying is his job and not a sin. “It is a mirror that reflects what it sees,” said Sylvie Berman, France’s former ambassador to Moscow. A few months before his speech to the Bundestag in 2001, Putin seduced President Bush Jr., who said he looked the Russian president in the eye and “gained a sense of his soul”, adding that he found him “very straightforward and reliable “.
In 2003, Putin gave an interview to a small group of journalists, in which I also participated. He left us waiting for several hours, in a show of calculated rudeness, which was also suffered by the then US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. In 2007, Putin brought his dog to a meeting with Angela Merkel in Russia, even though he knew the chancellor was afraid of dogs. “I understand why he feels he has to do it: to prove his manhood,” Merkel said.
Hard line against the West
Born in Leningrad in 1952, Putin grew up in the shadow of the Great Patriotic War. His father was severely wounded in the forehead, while his older brother died during the inhuman 872-day siege. The current president of Russia learned early on that only power can lead to victory.
The economic strength of Putin’s first eight years in power has allowed the Russian middle class to enjoy some benefits. The president, however, despite his legal education, treated the rule of law with contempt. “He chose the role of ‘chief oligarch’ and turned the state into an instrument of his oligarchic clique,” says historian Timothy Snyder.
The revolution in Georgia in 2003, the entry of the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia into NATO in 2004, as well as the uprising of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine shocked Putin and made him realize that Soviet republics rejected the Russian model, choosing a west-facing perspective. That’s where Putin’s shift from working with the West to confrontation. Asked by Angela Merkel what his biggest mistake was, Putin replied: “That I trusted you.”
Condoleezza Rice explains today that she diagnosed in 2004 a shift in Putin’s attitude towards the West. That year, the Russian president annulled the election of regional governors, appointing Kremlin elected officials. Russian television began to resemble that of the USSR because of its crude propaganda.
For Putin, NATO expansion into the former Soviet republics was an American betrayal. The threat of a successful Western democracy on Russia’s doorstep has typically become an existential threat to the survival of its authoritarian regime. “Putin’s nightmare is not NATO, but democracy. “Once it has adopted an imperial, militaristic ideological direction for Russia, it could not tolerate democracy in its neighboring countries,” said former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.
Former French President Francois Hollande remembers the surprise he felt when he heard Putin speak in derogatory terms about Americans. “She was cold. He is a man who always wants to show determination. “But he knows how to alternate threatening and crude speech with mild and reassuring language.”
Permanent rupture with the USA
The NATO bombing of Belgrade in 1999 and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 solidified Putin’s suspicion of Washington. His objections surfaced in his angry speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference. “One state – the United States – has spread its influence across its borders in every way. A world of geopolitical one-sidedness was imposed after the Cold War. “This development is dangerous,” said Vladimir Putin, “to the dismay of those present.”
Illusions
After the speech in Munich, Germany continued to have illusions about Putin. Born in East Germany and fluent in Russian, Merkel had developed a working relationship with him. The Russian leader had sent his two children to a German high school in Moscow after returning from Dresden in the 1980s, and used to recite German poetry. “There was a spiritual contact, a mutual understanding,” said Christoph Heisgen, a former Merkel diplomatic adviser.
But in the last year of George W. Bush’s term, the United States has been reluctant to compromise, with the US president planning Ukraine-Georgia defense cooperation with NATO, as he announced at the Alliance summit in Bucharest in 2008. Enlargement NATO had guaranteed the security and freedom of 100 million Europeans, who were groaning under the Soviet yoke and had to continue. The unilateral recognition of Kosovo by Washington and its allies at the same time was seen as a direct challenge to Russian sovereignty in the central Balkans.
The Obama administration’s failure to “restart” Washington-Moscow relations showed that even under the interim presidency of the more lenient Dmitry Medvedev, Russia-West relations were not going to improve. The 2008 financial crisis convinced Putin that the time was right for confrontation.
Against “decline”
In this battle, Putin armed himself with cultural and religious aids, portraying himself as a symbol of masculine orthodox principles, in stark contrast to the West’s blasphemous support for gay marriage, feminism, rampant immigration, and more.
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