Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин

Vladimir Vladimirovich
Putin (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин·

AGE: 56
OCCUPATION: Prime Minister of Russia
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 2

PRO: His steely-eyed fondness for Cold War–era diplomacy led to the invasion of Georgia and a showdown with the Ukraine over Russian-controlled gas lines.

CON: Anti-Putin protests are mounting, thanks in part to the country's economic mess. And, as if you needed further proof that he's the world's most powerful '70s nostalgist, Putin recently hired an ABBA tribute band to play a private gig.

Born 7 Oct 1952 in Leninguard,USSR; now Saint Petersburg, Russia) was the second President of Russia and is the current Prime Minister of Russia as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when president Boris Yeltsin resigned in a surprising move, and then Putin won the 2000 presidential election. In 2004, he was re-elected for a second term lasting until 7 May 2008.

Due to constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive Presidential term. After the victory of his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in the 2008 presidential elections, he was then nominated by the latter to be Russia's Prime Minister; Putin took the post on 8 May 2008.

Throughout his presidential terms and into his second term as Prime Minister, Putin has enjoyed high approval ratings amongst the Russian public. During his eight years in office, on the back of Yeltsin-era structural reforms, steadily rising oil price and cheap credit from western banks, Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase six-fold (72% in PPP), poverty cut more than half and average monthly salaries increase from $80 to $640, or by 150% in real rates.Analysts have described Putin's economic reforms as impressive. During his presidency, Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13 percent, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes.At the same time, his conduct in office has been questioned by domestic political opposition, foreign governments and human rights organizations for leading the Second Chechen War, for his record on internal human rights and freedoms, and for his alleged bullying of the former Soviet Republics. A new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy, such as Gennady Timchenko, Vladimir Yakunin, Yuriy Kovalchuk, Sergey Chemezov, with close personal ties to Putin, emerged according to media reports. Corruption increased and assumed "systemic and institutionalised form", according to a report by Boris Nemtsov as well as other sources.


EARLY LIFE
Putin was born on 7 October 1952 in Leningrad, to parents Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin (1911 – 1999) and Maria Ivanovna Shelomova (1911 – 1998). His mother was a factory worker, and his father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy, where he served in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s, subsequently serving with the NKVD in a sabotage group during World War II. Two elder brothers were born in the mid – 1930s; one died within a few months of birth; the second succumbed to diphtheria during the siege of Leningrad. His paternal grandfather, Spiridon Putin (1879 – 1965), is claimed to have been Vladimir Lenin's and Joseph Stalin's cook.

His autobiography, Ot Pervogo Litsa, (English: In the First Person)which is based on Putin's interviews, speaks of humble beginnings, including early years in a communal apartment in Leningrad. On 1 September 1960 he started at School No. 193 at Baskov Lane, just across from his house. By fifth grade he was one of a few in a class of more than 45 pupils who was not yet a member of the Pioneers, largely because of his rowdy behavior. In sixth grade he started taking sport seriously in the form of sambo and then judo. In his youth, Putin was eager to emulate the intelligence officer characters played on the Soviet screen by actors such as Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Georgiy Zhzhonov.

Putin graduated from the International Law branch of the Law Department of the Leningrad State University in 1975, writing his final thesis on international law.Whilst at university he became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and remained a member until the party was dissolved in December 1991.Also at the University he met Anatoly Sobchak, who later played important role in Putin's career.


KGB CAREER
Upon graduation Putin was recruited into the KGB. In 1976 he completed the KGB retraining course in Okhta, Leningrad. Then, according to Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky, he served at the Fifth Directorate of the KGB, which combated political dissent in the Soviet Union According to The Washington Post, he was spying on foreigners in Leningrad . He then received an offer to transfer to foreign intelligence First Chief Directorate of the KGB and was sent for additional year long training to the Dzerzhinsky KGB Higher School in Moscow and then in the early eighties—the Red Banner Yuri Andropov KGB Institute in Moscow (now the Academy of Foreign Intelligence).

From 1985 to 1990 the KGB stationed Putin in Dresden, East Germany.Following the collapse of the East German regime, Putin was recalled to the Soviet Union and returned to Leningrad, where in June 1991 he assumed a position with the International Affairs section of Leningrad State University, reporting to Vice-Rector Yuriy Molchanov. In his new position, Putin maintained surveillance on the student body and kept an eye out for recruits. It was during his stint at the university that Putin grew reacquainted with Anatoly Sobchak, then mayor of Leningrad. Sobchak served as an Assistant Professor during Putin's university years and was one of Putin's lecturers. Putin formally resigned from the state security services on 20 August 1991, during the KGB-supported abortive putsch against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.



EARLY POLITICAL CAREER
In May 1990, Putin was appointed Mayor Sobchak's advisor on international affairs. On 28 June 1991, he was appointed head of the Committee for External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office, with responsibility for promoting international relations and foreign investments. The Committee was also used to register business ventures in Saint Petersburg. Less than one year after taking control of the committee, Putin was investigated by a commission of the city legislative council. Commission deputies Marina Salye and Yury Gladkov concluded that Putin understated prices and issued licenses permitting the export of non-ferrous metals valued at a total of $93 million in exchange for food aid from abroad that never came to the city.The commission recommended Putin be fired, but there were no immediate consequences. Putin remained head of the Committee for External Relations until 1996. While heading the Committee for External Relations, from 1992 to March 2000 Putin was also on the advisory board of the German real estate holding Saint Petersburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG (SPAG) which has been investigated by German prosecutors for money laundering.

From 1994 to 1997, Putin was appointed to additional positions in the Saint Petersburg political arena. In March 1994 he became first deputy head of the administration of the city of Saint Petersburg. In 1995 (through June 1997) Putin led the Saint Petersburg branch of the pro-government Our Home Is Russia political party.[44] During this same period from 1995 through June 1997 he was also the head of the Advisory Board of the JSC Newspaper Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti.

In 1996, Anatoly Sobchak lost the Saint Petersburg mayoral election to Vladimir Yakovlev. Putin was called to Moscow and in June 1996 assumed position of a Deputy Chief of the Presidential Property Management Department headed by Pavel Borodin. He occupied this position until March 1997. On 26 March 1997 President Boris Yeltsin appointed Putin deputy chief of Presidential Staff, which he remained until May 1998, and chief of the Main Control Directorate of the Presidential Property Management Department (until June 1998).

On 27 June 1997, at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute Putin defended his Candidate of Science dissertation in economics titled "The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations". According to Clifford G Gaddy, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, 16 of the 20 pages that open a key section of Putin’s work were copied either word for word or with minute alterations from a management study, Strategic Planning and Policy, written by US professors William King and David Cleland and translated into Russian by a KGB-related institute in the early 1990s.6 diagrams and tables were also copied.

On 25 May 1998, Putin was appointed First Deputy Chief of Presidential Staff for regions, replacing Viktoriya Mitina; and, on 15 July, the Head of the Commission for the preparation of agreements on the delimitation of power of regions and the federal center attached to the President, replacing Sergey Shakhray. After Putin's appointment, the commission completed no such agreements, although during Shakhray's term as the Head of the Commission there were 46 agreements signed.[48] On 25 July 1998 Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin head of the FSB (one of the successor agencies to the KGB), the position Putin occupied until August 1999. He became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on 1 October 1998 and its Secretary on 29 March 1999. In April 1999, FSB Chief Vladimir Putin and Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin held a televised press conference in which they discussed a video that had aired nationwide 17 March on the state-controlled Russia TV channel which showed a naked man very similar to the Prosecutor General of Russia, Yury Skuratov, in bed with two young women. Putin claimed that expert FSB analysis proved the man on the tape to be Skuratov and that the orgy had been paid for by persons investigated for criminal offences.Skuratov had been adversarial toward President Yeltsin and had been aggressively investigating government corruption.

On 15 June 2000, The Times reported that Spanish police discovered that Putin had secretly visited a villa in Spain belonging to the oligarch Boris Berezovsky on up to five different occasions in 1999.


PRIME MINISTRY
On 9 August 1999, Vladimir Putin was appointed one of three First Deputy Prime Ministers, which enabled him later on that day, as the previous government led by Sergei Stepashin had been sacked, to be appointed acting Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation by President Boris Yeltsin.Yeltsin also announced that he wanted to see Putin as his successor. Later, that same day, Putin agreed to run for the presidency. On 16 August, the State Duma approved his appointment as Prime Minister with 233 votes in favour (vs. 84 against, 17 abstained), while a simple majority of 226 was required, making him Russia's fifth PM in less than eighteen months. On his appointment, few expected Putin, virtually unknown to the general public, to last any longer than his predecessors. Yeltsin's main opponents and would-be successors, Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov and former Chairman of the Russian Government Yevgeniy Primakov, were already campaigning to replace the ailing president, and they fought hard to prevent Putin's emergence as a potential successor. Putin's law-and-order image and his unrelenting approach to the renewed crisis in Chechnya soon combined to raise his popularity and allowed him to overtake all rivals.

Putin's rise to public office in August 1999 coincided with an aggressive resurgence of the near-dormant conflict in the North Caucasus, when a number of Chechens invaded a neighboring region starting the War in Dagestan. Both in Russia and abroad, Putin's public image was forged by his tough handling of the war. On assuming the role of acting President on 31 December 1999, Putin went on a previously scheduled visit to Russian troops in Chechnya. In 2003, a controversial referendum was held in Chechnya adopting a new constitution which declares the Republic as a part of Russia. Chechnya has been gradually stabilized with the parliamentary elections and the establishment of a regional government.Throughout the war Russia has severely disabled the Chechen rebel movement, although sporadic violence still occurs throughout the North Caucasus.

While not formally associated with any party, Putin pledged his support to the newly formed Unity Party, which won the second largest percentage of the popular vote (23.3%) in the December 1999 Duma elections, and in turn he was supported by it. Putin appeared to be ideally positioned to win the presidency in elections due the following summer.


PRESIDENCY

First term (2000 – 2004)
President Boris Yeltsin handing over the “presidential” copy of the Russian constitution to Vladimir Putin on 31 December 1999.

His rise to Russia's highest office ended up being even more rapid: on 31 December 1999, Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and, according to the constitution, Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation.

The first Decree that Putin signed 31 December 1999, was the one "On guarantees for former president of the Russian Federation and members of his family".[60][61] This ensured that "corruption charges against the outgoing President and his relatives" would not be pursued, although this claim is not strictly verifiable.[62] Later on 12 February 2001 Putin signed a federal law on guarantees for former presidents and their families, which replaced the similar decree. In 1999, Yeltsin and his family were under scrutiny for charges related to money-laundering by the Russian and Swiss authorities.

While his opponents had been preparing for an election in June 2000, Yeltsin's resignation resulted in the elections being held within three months, in March.[citation needed] Presidential elections were held on 26 March 2000; Putin won in the first round.[citation needed]
Vladimir Putin taking the Presidential Oath on 7 May 2000 with Boris Yeltsin watching on.

Vladimir Putin was inaugurated president on 7 May 2000. He appointed Financial minister Mikhail Kasyanov as his Prime minister. Having announced his intention to consolidate power in the country into a strict vertical, in May 2000 he issued a decree dividing 89 federal subjects of Russia between 7 federal districts overseen by representatives of him in order to facilitate federal administration. In July 2000, according to a law proposed by him and approved by the Russian parliament, Putin also gained the right to dismiss heads of the federal subjects.

During his first term in office, he moved to curb the political ambitions of some of the Yeltsin-era oligarchs such as former Kremlin insider Boris Berezovsky, who had "helped Mr Putin enter the family, and funded the party that formed Mr Putin's parliamentary base", according to BBC profile. At the same time, according to Vladimir Solovyev, it was Alexey Kudrin who was instrumental in Putin's assignment to the Presidential Administration of Russia to work with Pavel Borodin,[66] and according to Solovyev, Berezovsky was proposing Igor Ivanov rather than Putin as a new president.[67] A new group of business magnates, such as Gennady Timchenko, Vladimir Yakunin, Yuriy Kovalchuk, Sergey Chemezov, with close personal ties to Putin, emerged. Corruption grew by the magnitude of several times and assumed "systemic and institutionalised" form, according to a report by Boris Nemtsov as well as other sources. Corruption was characterized by Putin himself as "the most wearying and difficult to resolve" problem he encountered during his two terms in office.[74]

The first major challenge to Putin's popularity came in August 2000, when he was criticised for his alleged mishandling of the Kursk submarine disaster.[75]

In December 2000, Putin sanctioned the law to change the National Anthem of Russia. At the time the Anthem had music by Glinka and no words. The change was to restore (with a minor modification) the music of the post-1944 Soviet anthem by Alexandrov, while the new text was composed by Mikhalkov.[76][77]

Many in the Russian press and in the international media warned that the death of some 130 hostages in the special forces' rescue operation during the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis would severely damage President Putin's popularity. However, shortly after the siege had ended, the Russian president was enjoying record public approval ratings - 83% of Russians declared themselves satisfied with Putin and his handling of the siege.

The arrest in early July 2003 of Platon Lebedev, a Mikhail Khodorkovsky partner and second largest shareholder in Yukos, on suspicion of illegally acquiring a stake in a state-owned fertilizer firm, Apatit, in 1994, foreshadowed what by the end of the year became a full-fledged prosecution of Yukos and its management for fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion.

A few month before the elections, Putin fired Kasyanov's cabinet and appointed relatively obscure Mikhail Fradkov to his place. Sergey Ivanov became the first civilian in Russia to take Defence Minister position.

[edit] Second term (2004 – 2008)

On 14 March 2004, Putin was re-elected to the presidency for a second term, receiving 71% of the vote.

Following the Beslan school hostage crisis, in September 2004 Putin suggested the creation of the Public Chamber of Russia and launched an initiative to replace the direct election of the Governors and Presidents of the Federal subjects of Russia with a system whereby they would be proposed by the President and approved or disapproved by regional legislatures. He also initiated the merger of a number of federal subjects of Russia into larger entities. Whilst some in Beslan blamed Putin personally for the massacre in which hundreds died,[81] his overall popularity in Russia did not suffer.[citation needed]

According to various Russian and western media reports, one of the major domestic issue concerns for President Putin were the problems arising from the ongoing demographic and social trends in Russia, such as the death rate being higher than the birth rate, cyclical poverty, and housing concerns. In 2005, National Priority Projects were launched in the fields of health care, education, housing and agriculture. In his May 2006 annual speech, Putin proposed increasing maternity benefits and prenatal care for women. Putin was strident about the need to reform the judiciary considering the present federal judiciary "Sovietesque", wherein many of the judges hand down the same verdicts as they would under the old Soviet judiciary structure, and preferring instead a judiciary that interpreted and implemented the code to the current situation. In 2005, responsibility for federal prisons was transferred from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Justice. The most high-profile change within the national priority project frameworks was probably the 2006 across-the-board increase in wages in healthcare and education, as well as the decision to modernise equipment in both sectors in 2006 and 2007.

One of the most controversial aspects of Putin's second term was the continuation of the criminal prosecution of Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, President of YUKOS, for fraud and tax evasion. While much of the international press saw this as a reaction against Khodorkovsky's funding for political opponents of the Kremlin, both liberal and communist, the Russian government had argued that Khodorkovsky was engaged in corrupting a large segment of the Duma to prevent changes in the tax code aimed at taxing windfall profits and closing offshore tax evasion vehicles. Khodorkovsky's arrest was met positively by the Russian public, who see the oligarchs as thieves who were unjustly enriched and robbed the country of its natural wealth.[83] Many of the initial privatizations, including that of Yukos, are widely believed to have been fraudulent – Yukos, valued at some $30 billion in 2004, had been privatized for $110 million – and like other oligarchic groups, the Yukos-Menatep name has been frequently tarred with accusations of links to criminal organizations. Tim Osborne of GML, the majority owner of Yukos, said in February 2008: "Despite claims by President Vladimir Putin that the Kremlin had no interest in bankrupting Yukos, the company's assets were auctioned at below-market value. In addition, new debts suddenly emerged out of nowhere, preventing the company from surviving. The main beneficiary of these tactics was Rosneft. It is clearer now than ever that the expropriation of Yukos was a ploy to put key elements of the energy sector in the hands of Putin's retinue. Moreover, the Yukos affair marked a turning point in Russia's commitment to domestic property rights and the rule of law."[84] The fate of Yukos was seen by western media as a sign of a broader shift toward a system normally described as state capitalism,Against the backdrop of the Yukos saga, questions were raised about the actual destination of $13.1 billion[87] remitted in October 2005 by the state-run Gazprom as payment for 75.7% stake in Sibneft to Millhouse-controlled offshore accounts, after a series of generous dividend payouts and another $3 billion received from Yukos in a failed merger in 2003.In 1996, Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky had acquired the controlling interest in Sibneft for $100 million within the controversial loans-for-shares program.Some prominent Yeltsin-era billionaires, such as Sergey Pugachyov, are reported to continue to enjoy close relationship with Putin's Kremlin.

Although Russia's state intervention in the economy had been usually heavily critized in the West, a study by Bank of Finland’s Institute for Economies in Transition (BOFIT) in 2008 showed that state intervention had had a positive impact to corporate governance of many companies in Russia: the formal indications of the quality of corporate governance in Russia were higher in companies with state control or with a stake held by the government.
Vladimir Putin in the cabin of Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber (2005).

Since February 2006, the political philosophy of Putin's administration has often been described as a "Sovereign democracy", the term being used both with positive and pejorative connotations. First proposed by Vladislav Surkov in February 2006, the term quickly gained currency within Russia and arguably unified various political elites around it. According to its proponents' interpretation, the government's actions and policies ought above all to enjoy popular support within Russia itself and not be determined from outside the country.[93][94] However, as implied by expert of the Carnegie Endowment Masha Lipman, "Sovereign democracy is a Kremlin coinage that conveys two messages: first, that Russia's regime is democratic and, second, that this claim must be accepted, period. Any attempt at verification will be regarded as unfriendly and as meddling in Russia's domestic affairs." [95] Some[who?] Western observers derided the term as a subterfuge to mask what is otherwise known as dictatorship.

During the term, Putin was widely criticized in the West and also by Russian liberals for what many observers considered a wide-scale crackdown on media freedom in Russia. Since the early 1990s, a number of Russian reporters who have covered the situation in Chechnya, contentious stories on organized crime, state and administrative officials, and large businesses have been killed.On 7 October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who ran a campaign exposing corruption in the Russian army and its conduct in Chechnya, was shot in the lobby of her apartment building. The death of Politkovskaya triggered an outcry of criticism of Russia in the Western media, with accusations that, at best, Putin has failed to protect the country's new independent media.[99] [100] When asked about Politkovskaya murder in his interview with the German TV channel ARD, Putin said that her murder brings much more harm to the Russian authorities than her publications.In January 2008, Oleg Panfilov, head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, claimed that a system of "judicial terrorism" had started against journalists under Putin and that more than 300 criminal cases had been opened against them over the past six years.

At the same time, according to 2005 research by VCIOM, the share of Russians approving censorship on TV grew in a year from 63% to 82%; sociologists believed that Russians were not voting in favor of press freedom suppression, but rather for expulsion of ethically doubtful material (such as scenes of violence and sex).[103]

In June 2007, Putin organised a conference for history teachers to promote a high-school teachers manual called A Modern History of Russia: 1945-2006: A Manual for History Teachers which portrays Joseph Stalin as a cruel but successful leader. Putin said at the conference that the new manual will "help instill young people with a sense of pride in Russia", and he argued that Stalin's purges pale in comparison to the United States' atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At a memorial for Stalin's victims, Putin said that while Russians should "keep alive the memory of tragedies of the past, we should focus on all that is best in the country."

In a 2007 interview with newspaper journalists from G8 countries, Putin spoke out in favor of a longer presidential term in Russia, saying "a term of five, six or seven years in office would be entirely acceptable".

On 12 September 2007, Russian news agencies reported that Putin dissolved the government upon the request of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. Fradkov commented that it was to give the President a "free hand" to make decisions in the run-up to the parliamentary election. Viktor Zubkov was appointed the new prime minister.

In December 2007, United Russia won 64.24% of the popular vote in their run for State Duma according to election preliminary results.Their closest competitor, the Communist Party of Russia, won approximately 12% of votes. United Russia's victory in December 2007 elections was seen by many as an indication of strong popular support of the then Russian leadership and its policies.

The end of 2007 saw what both Russian and Western analysts viewed as an increasingly bitter infighting between various factions of the siloviki that make up a significant part of Putin's inner circle.

In December 2007, the Russian sociologist Igor Eidman (VCIOM) qualified the regime that had solidified under Putin as "the power of bureaucratic oligarchy" which had "the traits of extreme right-wing dictatorship — the dominance of state-monopoly capital in the economy, silovoki structures in governance, clericalism and statism in ideology".[120] Some analysts assess the socio-economic system which has emerged in Russia as profoundly unstable and the situation in the Kremlin after Dmitry Medvedev's nomination as fraught with a coup d'état, as "Putin has built a political construction that resembles a pyramid which rests on its tip, rather than on its base".

Gregory Feifer wrote in February 2008: "The main lesson we should have learned from Putin's eight years in office is a recognition that under the traditional Russian political system that he has revitalized, not only do officials not mean what they say, but also that obfuscation is essential to the way it all works ... Putin's playing of the Russian political game has been virtuosic." On the eve of his stepping down as president the FT editorialised: "Mr Putin will remain Russia’s real ruler for some time to come. And the ex-KGB men he promoted will stay close to the seat of power."

On 8 February 2008, Putin delivered a speech before the expanded session of the State Council headlined "On the Strategy of Russia's Development until 2020",which was interpreted by the Russian media as his "political bequest". The speech was largely devoted to castigating the state of affairs in the 1990s and setting ambitious targets of economic growth by 2020. He also condemned the expansion of NATO and the US plan to include Poland and the Czech Republic in a missile defence shield and promised that "Russia has, and always will have, responses to these new challenges".

In his last days in office he was reported to have taken a series of steps to re-align the regional bureaucracy to make the governors report to the prime minister rather than the president. The presidential site explained that "the changes... bear a refining nature and do not affect the essential positions of the system. The key role in estimating the effectiveness of activity of regional authority still belongs to President of the Russian Federation."


MARTIAL ARTS
One of Putin's favorite sports is the martial art of judo. Putin began training in sambo (a martial art that originated in the Soviet Union) at the age of 14, before switching to judo, which he continues to practice today.[283] Putin won competitions in his hometown of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), including the senior championship of Leningrad. He is the President of the Yawara Dojo, the same Saint Petersburg dojo he practiced at when young. Putin co-authored a book on his favorite sport, published in Russian as Judo with Vladimir Putin and in English under the title Judo: History, Theory, Practice.

Though he is not the first world leader to practice judo, Putin is the first leader to move forward into the advanced levels. Currently, Putin holds a 6th dan (red/white belt) and is best known for his Harai Goshi (sweeping hip throw). Putin earned Master of Sports (Soviet and Russian sport title) in Judo in 1975 and in Sambo in 1973. After a state visit to Japan, Putin was invited to the Kodokan Institute where he showed the students and Japanese officials different judo techniques.


HONORS
# In September 2006, France's president Jacques Chirac awarded Vladimir Putin the insignia of Grand-Croix (Grand Cross) of the Légion d'honneur, the highest French decoration, to celebrate his contribution to the friendship between the two countries. This decoration is usually awarded to the heads of state considered very close to France.
# On 12 February 2007 Saudi King Abdullah awarded Putin the King Abdul Aziz Award, Saudi Arabia's top civilian decoration.
# On 10 September 2007 UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan awarded Putin the Order of Zayed, UAE's top civilian decoration.
# In December 2007 Putin was named Person of the Year by Expert magazine, influential and respected Russian business weekly.


Vladimir Putin : a quick look and comments
Madeline Albright described Vladimir Putin as "shrewd, confident, hard-working and ingratiating" after meeting him in 1999, and all of this remains true of the enigmatic Russian leader. But after nine years as the face of Russian politics—eight spent as president before transitioning to the amorphous role of prime minister—Putin has revealed a different side as well, one that is antagonistic, ambitious and brilliantly political.

Little is known of Putin's formative years. He was a member of the KGB from the 1970s through the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when he entered local politics in his native St. Petersburg. In 1996, Putin received a coveted invitation from Boris Yeltsin to join his political family in Moscow, and in 1998, Putin became head of Russia's Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB. When the Russian parliament dissolved in 1999, Yeltsin selected Putin to be Prime Minister and acknowledged that Putin would eventually succeed him as president. Yeltsin died a few months later, catapulting Putin, a virtual unknown, onto the international political stage.

Early in his presidency Putin had an easy rapport with the United States—in 2001 President Bush famously said that he looked into Putin's eyes and "was able to get a sense of his soul." Since then, Putin has shown a willingness to work with the U.S. when it's congruent with Russian interests, most notably working with Bush to sign an agreement slashing both country's strategic reserve of nuclear weapons. But Putin's gestures toward ending Cold War tensions are often undermined by his highly developed sense of nationalism.

Putin pursued a multi-year fight against the Russian breakaway province of Chechnya, even as international leaders urged a ceasefire and raised questions about Russian human rights violations. He oversaw a widely criticized expansion of Russian weapon systems in Eastern Europe, an answer—he said—to the development of a U.S. missile shield on the continent. As prime minister, he was involved in the Russian retaliation against Georgia over separatist South Ossetia, a conflict he accused Bush of starting to help John McCain in the U.S. presidential election.

Though Putin honored Russia's term limits and stepped down from the presidency after two terms in 2008, he orchestrated the election of loyalist Dmitry Medvedev as his successor. Putin was promptly installed as prime minister and moved to centralize power in his new post, saying "[t]he cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister, is the highest executive in the country." A Putin-backed measure to expand presidential term limits passed through Russia's parliament in November, a move that stoked speculation Putin would run for the presidency again when Medvedev's term expires in 2012.

From albright

I have friends who predict that Vladimir Putin will find his new position as Russian prime minister a comedown after eight years as President. I doubt it. Putin is more likely to define his job than be defined by it. After our first meetings, in 1999 and 2000, I described him in my journal as "shrewd, confident, hard-working, patriotic, and ingratiating." In the years since, he has become more confident and — to Westerners — decidedly less ingratiating.

Some believe Putin's KGB background explains everything, but his allegiance to the KGB is in turn explained by his intense nationalism — which accounts for his popularity in Russia. Timing matters in history, and Putin has had the benefit of high oil prices and the contrast with his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. His vision of Russia is that of a great power in the old-fashioned European sense. Such powers have spheres of influence and subjugate lesser powers. At home, they celebrate national traditions and prize collective glory, not individual freedom.

Tolstoy described the 19th century count Mikhail Speransky as a "rigorous-minded man of immense intelligence, who through his energy...had come to power and used it solely for the good of Russia." What one found disconcerting, though, "was Speransky's cold, mirror-like gaze, which let no one penetrate to his soul [and] a too great contempt for people." It is possible to love the idea of a nation without caring too much for its citizens.

It is unlikely that Putin, 55, will wear out his welcome at home anytime soon, as he has nearly done with many democracies abroad. In the meantime, he will remain an irritant to nato, a source of division within Europe and yet another reason for the West to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.

Albright is a former U.S. Secretary of State

No one is born with a stare like Vladimir Putin's. The Russian President's pale blue eyes are so cool, so devoid of emotion that the stare must have begun as an affect, the gesture of someone who understood that power might be achieved by the suppression of ordinary needs, like blinking. The affect is now seamless, which makes talking to the Russian President not just exhausting but often chilling. It's a gaze that says, I'm in charge.

This may explain why there is so little visible security at Putin's dacha, Novo-Ogarevo, the grand Russian presidential retreat set inside a birch- and fir-forested compound west of Moscow. To get there from the capital requires a 25-minute drive through the soul of modern Russia, past decrepit Soviet-era apartment blocks, the mashed-up French Tudor-villa McMansions of the new oligarchs and a shopping mall that boasts not just the routine spoils of affluence like Prada and Gucci but Lamborghinis and Ferraris too.

When you arrive at the dacha's faux-neoclassical gate, you have to leave your car and hop into one of the Kremlin's vehicles that slowly wind their way through a silent forest of snow-tipped firs. Aides warn you not to stray, lest you tempt the snipers positioned in the shadows around the compound. This is where Putin, 55, works. (He lives with his wife and two twentysomething daughters in another mansion deeper in the woods.) The rooms feel vast, newly redone and mostly empty. As we prepare to enter his spacious but spartan office, out walk some of Russia's most powerful men: Putin's chief of staff, his ideologist, the speaker of parliament—all of them wearing expensive bespoke suits and carrying sleek black briefcases. Putin, who rarely meets with the foreign press, then gives us 3 1/2 hours of his time, first in a formal interview in his office and then upstairs over an elaborate dinner of lobster-and-shiitake-mushroom salad, "crab fingers with hot sauce" and impressive vintages of Puligny-Montrachet and a Chilean Cabernet.

Vladimir Putin gives a first impression of contained power: he is compact and moves stiffly but efficiently. He is fit, thanks to years spent honing his black-belt judo skills and, these days, early-morning swims of an hour or more. And while he is diminutive—5 ft. 6 in. (about 1.7 m) seems a reasonable guess—he projects steely confidence and strength. Putin is unmistakably Russian, with chiseled facial features and those penetrating eyes. Charm is not part of his presentation of self—he makes no effort to be ingratiating. One senses that he pays constant obeisance to a determined inner discipline. The successor to the boozy and ultimately tragic Boris Yeltsin, Putin is temperate, sipping his wine only when the protocol of toasts and greetings requires it; mostly he just twirls the Montrachet in his glass. He eats little, though he twitchily picks the crusts off the bread rolls on his plate.

Putin grudgingly reveals a few personal details between intermittent bites of food: He relaxes, he says, by listening to classical composers like Brahms, Mozart, Tchaikovsky. His favorite Beatles song is Yesterday. He has never sent an e-mail in his life. And while he grew up in an officially atheist country, he is a believer and often reads from a Bible that he keeps on his state plane. He is impatient to the point of rudeness with small talk, and he is in complete control of his own message.

He is clear about Russia's role in the world. He is passionate in his belief that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a tragedy, particularly since overnight it stranded 25 million ethnic Russians in "foreign" lands. But he says he has no intention of trying to rebuild the U.S.S.R. or re-establish military or political blocs. And he praises his predecessors Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev for destroying a system that had lost the people's support. "I'm not sure I could have had the guts to do that myself," he tells us. Putin is, above all, a pragmatist, and has cobbled together a system—not unlike China's—that embraces the free market (albeit with a heavy dose of corruption) but relies on a strong state hand to keep order.

Like President George W. Bush, he sees terrorism as one of the most profound threats of the new century, but he is wary of labeling it Islamic. "Radicals," he says, "can be found in any environment." Putin reveals that Russian intelligence recently uncovered a "specific" terrorist threat against both Russia and the U.S. and that he spoke by phone with Bush about it.

What gets Putin agitated—and he was frequently agitated during our talk—is his perception that Americans are out to interfere in Russia's affairs. He says he wants Russia and America to be partners but feels the U.S. treats Russia like the uninvited guest at a party. "We want to be a friend of America," he says. "Sometimes we get the impression that America does not need friends" but only "auxiliary subjects to command." Asked if he'd like to correct any American misconceptions about Russia, Putin leans forward and says, "I don't believe these are misconceptions. I think this is a purposeful attempt by some to create an image of Russia based on which one could influence our internal and foreign policies. This is the reason why everybody is made to believe...[Russians] are a little bit savage still or they just climbed down from the trees, you know, and probably need to have...the dirt washed out of their beards and hair." The veins on his forehead seem ready to pop.

Vladimir Putin is no Invalid , No matter what Michael Dells thinks

Ever since Vladimir Putin rose to power in 2000, his political opponents and entire countries have learned to their cost that he has a tough, demeaning streak. Wednesday it was Michael Dell's turn.

At the official opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Putin, now Russian Prime Minister, delivered a 40-minute speech touching on everything from why the dollar should not be the sole reserve currency to how the world needed to enter into a smart energy partnership with Russia. Then it was time for questions. First up: Dell. He praised Russia's technical and scientific prowess, and then asked: "How can we help" you to expand IT in Russia.

Big mistake. Russia has been allergic to offers of aid from the West ever since hundreds of overpaid consultants arrived in Moscow after the collapse of Communism, in 1991, and proceeded to hand out an array of advice that proved, at times, useless or dangerous.

Putin's withering reply to Dell: "We don't need help. We are not invalids. We don't have limited mental capacity." The slapdown took many of the people in the audience by surprise. Putin then went on to outline some of the steps the Russian government has taken to wire up the country, including remote villages in Siberia. And, in a final dig at Dell, he talked about how Russian scientists were rightly respected not for their hardware, but for their software. The implication: Any old fool can build a PC outfit.

The Godfather :Vladimir Putin
You can say what you like about Russian President Vladimir Putin--although you'd be well advised to keep it polite--but he has certainly re-established his country's credibility as a great power. Ten years ago, Russia was in a state of disarray reminiscent of the early 17th century "Time of Troubles." Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, was like a caricature of the disastrous Czar Boris Godunov, on whose watch Russia suffered hunger and humiliation. Plagued by heart trouble and alcohol abuse, Yeltsin had secured re-election in 1996 only by turning the privatization of the Russian energy sector into a sleazy scam, trading oil and gas fields for campaign contributions. Meanwhile, ordinary Russians had to endure rampant inflation and unemployment. Small wonder Russia's geopolitical standing seemed to crumble during the 1990s. As former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact allies queued up to join NATO, the superpower seemed really to have become--as the cold war joke had it--Upper Volta with missiles.

Then, at the end of 1999, Putin took over. Since then he has ruthlessly reasserted Kremlin control over the energy sector and the media. The economy has bounced back, with growth averaging 6.8% and inflation coming down into single digits. Putin's most impressive achievement, however, has been to restore Russia's global clout. While his predecessor acted the clown on the international stage, Putin has relished playing the tough guy. Indeed, when I saw him speak at the recent international Conference on Security Policy in Munich, the Russian President gave a striking impersonation of Michael Corleone in The Godfather--the embodiment of implicit menace. An American delegation that included Defense Secretary Robert Gates and presidential contender John McCain heard Putin warn that a "unipolar world"--meaning one dominated by the U.S.--would prove "pernicious not only for all those within this system but also for the sovereign itself." America's "hyper use of force," Putin said, was "plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts."

To some listeners, Putin's complaints were eerily reminiscent of the cold war. But as I looked around the conference hall, it struck me that his target audience was not necessarily American but rather more European and Middle Eastern. Like Michael Corleone, Putin aspires to be a businessman. His Russia is an energy empire, sitting on more than a quarter of the world's proven reserves of natural gas, 17% of its coal and 6% of its oil. For geographical reasons, the U.S. is not one of Russia's main customers. But two-fifths of Germany's natural-gas imports come from Russia--as do all of Iran's new nuclear reactors. When Putin mentioned energy prices, it was the Germans in the audience who took notes. And when he got onto nuclear proliferation, it was the Iranians who sat up.

The key point is that Russia's geopolitical power has become a function of the value of its energy exports. As Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin has pointed out, the energy crisis of the 1970s helped the Soviet economy--even as it hurt the West--by bathing the ailing Soviet system in petrodollars. But as oil prices slid below an average price of $20 per bbl. from 1986 to 1996, Russian power slid too. It's no coincidence that the price of oil touched $11 in Yeltsin's miserable last year.

All the world his stage
Russia's President Vladimir Putin, a judo champion in his youth, is now building up his political muscles. He flexed them ostentatiously in his annual address to Russia's Federal Assembly on April 26, grabbing headlines with his threat to reconsider his country's adhesion to the treaty on conventional forces in Europe. Signed by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, the treaty committed the U.S.S.R, and later the Russian Federation, to reducing its military deployment in its European territories. Given that this deal was one of the landmark indications that the cold war was over, why would Putin want to provoke the West by threatening to abandon it?

Putin's threat is a pointed response to the U.S. decision to install missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. The American justification is that NATO needs to extend its defenses against a potential attack from Iran, but few Russians accept that argument. Poland and the Czech Republic are a vast distance from Iran, so Russian public opinion needs little persuasion by the Kremlin to worry that NATO's true aim is to line up bases against Russia. Such fears have been growing since the mid-1990s. Presidents Gorbachev and Yeltsin had never imagined that NATO would recruit the states of the former Soviet bloc into its membership. But Russia at the time was on its knees economically. It could not afford to fall out with the U.S. and its allies.

Now things are very different. Under Putin, Russia has used fuel rather than military power as its weapon in trying to quell attempts by Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia to wriggle free of its tutelage. The Russian authorities have hinted that countries in Western Europe ought to avoid annoying them, too. Exports of gas and oil, moreover, have balanced the Russian budget and enabled the government to take unprecedented initiatives, which Putin mentioned in his address. As billions of petrochemical dollars pour into the nation's coffers, he seeks to reinvigorate its scientific base. The down-at-heels research institutes are to receive immense subsidies, and the brain drain of scientists to America is to be blocked off. Putin wants the state to play its traditional role of picking which industrial sectors to advance. He has plumped for nanotechnology, betting that Russia can quickly become much more than a seller of its natural resources. Like China and India, it is to be pointed in the direction of ultramodern industry. This is an exciting vision, and at last the Russian economy has the financial wherewithal for its realization.

The Russian President has avoided explaining any new "national idea." This was a dig at the late Boris Yeltsin, who was forever re-explaining what he thought about Russia's destiny. Putin says he does not intend to release a political testament before he steps down in 2008. He insists that what counts is not rhetoric but action.

In foreign policy he is equally assertive. He revealed, for example, that he intends to propose Kazakhstan for the presidency of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Gone are the days when Russia was content to be in the audience rather than onstage. And by playing along diplomatically with Kazakhstan, Putin hopes to enhance both Russia's prestige and authority and his own. Crucial to this end is the revival of Russian armed power. The address to the Federal Assembly touched on this in ways that have tended to escape the attention of foreign observers. Recognizing the inefficiency of a massive conscript army, Putin aims to increase the proportion of volunteer recruits and to modernize their equipment. More strikingly, he has announced a program of shipbuilding to restore the navy to something like its previous strength.

Putin, a former KGB officer, talks about the priority for Russia to move beyond being a supplicant in world affairs. Equally forceful in his own country, he has done dreadful things. Chechnya's soil is sodden with blood and is ruled by a thug who has Putin's approval. The Russian media have been intimidated into submission. The rule of law is widely ignored. Businessmen kowtow to the government or else lose their businesses. Almost a fifth of Russians live in poverty, according to U.S. figures.

Yet Putin rides high in the opinion polls. He has brought stability and pride back to Russia. He speaks tough to foreign politicians. And, as his comments on the treaty on conventional forces in Europe show, he is politically clever. The threat is a veiled one. Putin says he first wants to put his argument to the NATO-Russia Council; he intends to appear as a reasonable negotiator. Whether he really thinks the Americans will back down in Poland and the Czech Republic is not clear. But he appeals strongly to Russians. And he can make a lot more trouble in Europe, East and West, before the end of his presidency.

The russian uprising

Think Vladimir Putin's iron rule has turned Russia into a land of obedient, beaten-down people? Not in Cherkessk, a city of 140,000 in the Caucasus. A bus conductor there asked an elderly disabled passenger to pay his fare last week and the old man used his crutches to pummel the conductor — because he'd never had to pay before. Not in Tula, 165 km south of Moscow, where more than 40 such assaults on bus and tram conductors were recorded in just three days. Not in Khimki on the outskirts of Moscow, where several thousand travelers heading for the airport missed their flights because a thousand furious pensioners blocked the highway for three hours. And certainly not in St. Petersburg on Saturday, where 10,000 brought downtown traffic to a standstill as Putin was paying a visit to his native city. Some waved signs demanding that he resign.

What provoked all this violence and incivility? A new law that strips about 40 million Russian citizens of some social benefits, including the right of pensioners to ride public transport for free. (As an added affront, fares jumped by 30%.) The legislation, which replaces benefits with individual cash subsidies, is part of the Kremlin's effort to balance its books. But the government allocated just $6 billion to cover $18 billion in scrapped benefits, and starting in February, some medical benefits and utility and housing subsidies for pensioners, veterans and the disabled will go, too. At the same time, prices are skyrocketing. Rafail Islamgazin, a retired army colonel, wrote to the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda about how the law affects him: "I received some $250 [worth of] benefits, but my monetary compensation is now $31 while my utility bills have increased by 150%. The state must really hate its defenders to taunt them like this."

The cutbacks triggered protests all across Russia, and a rare volley of criticism aimed directly at President Putin. "With this legislation, Putin has delegitimized his office," says Mikhail Delyagin, an economist and director of the Institute of Modernization. "He's created the threat of a major state crisis and the disintegration of Russia." That may be hyperbolic, but such open opposition to the government is extremely rare in Putin's Russia — and the Kremlin is still jittery after Ukraine's orange revolution, fearing that some of the popular unrest that defeated Moscow's candidate for President might spill across the border. And independent Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov insists that the danger is real: "These spontaneous protests signal the moral end of Putin's corrupt secret-police regime," he told TIME.

In some regions, such as Chelyabinsk in the Urals and Kemerovo in Siberia, authorities caved in and reinstated the transport benefits, if only temporarily. But scores of protesters were also charged with misdemeanors, such as violating public order and impeding transport. Pro-Putin Duma Deputy Andrei Isayev threatened punishment to "those who seek to carry the orange illness into Russia." Elsewhere, demonstrations continued into the weekend, and Russia's Federation of Independent Trade Unions declared itself ready "to organize protest actions, unless the authorities change federal and regional legislation" on the benefit cuts.

After endorsing and promoting the new legislation last year, Putin has so far remained silent about the protests. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov dismissed the unrest as "arising mostly at the level of psychological perceptions and being fanned by the media." But people still blame the President. PUTIN IS A WORSE ENEMY THAN HITLER, read a typical poster in Samara, 885 km east of Moscow, where protesters blockaded main roads for days. Even the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexi II, weighed in, calling on the state to prevent the reforms from depriving "people of the real ability to use transportation and communication, preserve their housing, and have access to medical services and medications."

To many, Putin seems unnerved. Appearing last Friday on TV, he looked uncharacteristically ill at ease. According to a source close to the Kremlin, Putin "restricts himself to a narrow circle of three to four close confidants." With so many angry people out on the streets, that might not be the smartest strategy.

His Comments

On Iraq

Whatever has been done without authorization from the United Nations cannot be considered fair or justified, President Putin said on the war in Iraq. The president pointed out that "Russia doesn't want the United States to be defeated in its struggle against international terrorism". He said Russia and the United States are partners in this struggle.

On Territorial Integrity of Georgia

Russia calls for the territorial integrity of Georgia. In a direct TV dialogue with the country's citizens President Putin said that maintaining territorial integrity had recently been a serious problem to Russia too. Now, he said, this problem has largely been settled. The principle of territorial integrity of states, Mr.Putin said, is recognized by international law. "We are members of the United Nations and we'll act on our international commitments", - the president concluded.

On Terrorism

The Russian law enforcement agencies should step up effort to counteract terrorism, President Putin said in a live dialogue with Russians. Terrorism, the president said, is one of the most burning issues of the day posing a direct challenge to Russia and many other nations. The main threat comes from people who think they have the right to exercise control of the Muslim-populated areas. This, the Russian president said, presents a problem to Russia too. The only way to fight off international terrorism, Mr.Putin said, is to resist the pressure, not to give in to panic and to consolidate every effort in averting the danger.

On Army Reform

A reform to upgrade the armed forces will result in an increase in pay for the servicemen. In the course of a direct TV dialogue with the Russians President Putin said the servicemen's pay was indexed to inflation last year and would be indexed again. The reform of the armed forces, the president said, would entail changes in the staffing principles. Half of the armed forces will consist of conscripts serving on contract, and starting from the year 2007 the obligatory army service term will be reduced to one year. There are also plans to modernize the existing weapons and purchase the new ones, the president concluded.

Interviews details of Putin

Thomas Roth: Mr Prime Minister, after the escalation in Georgia, the international public and the press sees Russia in isolation against the rest of the world and beginning a war in Georgia. Why have you placed your country in this isolation?

Vladimir Putin: What do you think, who began the war in Georgia?

Roth: As I see it, the conflict was incited by the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali in S.Ossetia.

Putin: I thank you for this answer. That is correct, that was it indeed. We will deal more in greater detail with that later. Now I want to emphasize that we did not prompt this situation. And as regards the reputation of Russia, I am convinced that the reputation of any country capable of following an independent foreign policy that would protect the lives of its citizens, would only enhance its reputation.

And vice versa. The reputation of other countries which make for themselves a rule to interfere in the politics of other nations by extending themselves beyond their own national interests, their reputation would decrease. This says it all.

Roth: You have not yet answered the question why you have risked the isolation of your country from the rest of the world.

Putin: I thought I answered the question. But if it requires additional explanations, I will give it.

I am of the opinion that a country, in this case Russia, which would defend the honour of its citizens, whose lives it acts to protect, and acts according to international-law obligations in the context of the peacekeeping forces, it follows that such a country would not come into isolation. With regard to Europe and the United States - they do not rule the world.

And vice versa. I would like to emphasize again: If any countries believe that they are justified in serving their own personal and national interests by disregarding the foreign policy interests of other states, the reputation of such countries in the world would gradually decline. If the European countries fall in line with the foreign policy interests of the United States, they are not, in my opinion, going to succeed.

And now to our international-law obligations. According to international agreements the Russian peacekeeping forces were granted the obligation to take the peaceful population of S.Ossetia under its protection. Let us recall in this connection, the year 1995 in Bosnia.

It is well-known that the European peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, which consisted of Netherlands military members, did not stop one of the attacking sides and thus brought about the destruction of an entire locality. Hundreds were killed.

This tragedy in Bosnia’s Srebrenica is very well known in Europe. Should we have acted likewise? Should we have ignored the aggression and thereby making it possible for Georgian military units to destroy human lives in Tskhinvali?

Roth: Mr Prime Minister, your critics say that your goal in S.Ossetia was not to protect people, but to try to further destabilize Georgia and to remove the Georgian president from office. Why? In order to prevent Georgia from joining NATO. Is that so?

Putin: This is not so, it is a perversion of the facts, this is a lie. If this were our goal - then we would have probably started this conflict. But you yourself have admitted that the Georgian side started this conflict.

Now let me recall the facts of recent history. After the illegal decision on the recognition of the independence of Kosovo, everybody expected that Russia would recognize the independence and sovereignty of S.Ossetia and Abkhazia. And we had a moral right to do so. But we did not do so. We acted more than cautiously and we ’swallowed’ the unlawful Kosovo action.

But what did we get in return for our restraint? An escalation of the conflict, the attack on our peace keeping forces, the raid and destruction of the civilian population in South Ossetia! These are facts that are very well known and have been published throughout Europe.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of France was in N.Ossetia where he met with refugees fleeing from the Georgian aggressors. Even eye-witnesses reported that Georgian military units ran over women and children with tanks. They drove civilians into homes and churches and burned them alive. And Georgian soldiers bursting into Tskhinvali, when they had passed by cellars where women and children hid themselves, threw grenades into the cellars. What is this, if not genocide?

Georgian leadership, who instigated this catastrophe, has undermined the territorial integrity of Georgia by their actions. Such leaders have no right to steer a country regardless of its size. If they were decent human beings they would resign immediately.

Roth: But Mr Prime Minister, that is not your decision, that is a Georgian decision.

Putin: Naturally. But we know different precedents.

Thomas Roth: But Mr Prime Minister, that is not your decision, that is a Georgian decision.

Putin: Naturally. But we know different precedents.

We remember how the American troops marched into Iraq and what they wished to do with Saddam Hussein because he destroyed some villages of the Shiites. In contrast to this, in just the first hours of Georgia’s invasion, ten villages in S.Ossetia were destroyed, wiped off the face of the earth.

Roth: Does this give you the right to remain not only in the conflict zone but to march beyond that into a sovereign country and to bombard this sovereign country? That I sit here before you now I owe to sheer luck. For a bomb from your airplane exploded one hundred meters from me in Gori in a residential area. Isn’t it a clear violation of international law that you in fact now occupy a sovereign nation? Where do you get this right?

Putin: We responded within the parameters of international law. The assault on the posts of our peacekeeping forces in S.Ossetia which resulted in the murder of our peacemakers and the killing of our citizens, we have considered without a doubt to be an assault upon Russia.

In the first hours of the fighting, the Georgian armed forces immediately killed several dozen of the soldiers of our internationally-recognized Russian peacekeeping forces. In our southern position, as there were positions of the peacekeeping forces both in the south and in the north, Georgian tanks encircled the lightly armed Russian peacekeeping forces and opened direct fire on them.

When our peacekeeping forces tried to take heavy munitions from the hanger, they were shelled by the Grad rocket stations. Ten Russian soldiers who were still in the hangers were killed on the spot - burned alive.

Roth: Mr Prime Minister…

Putin: I am not finished yet. Then, the Georgian Air Forces attacked various points in S.Ossetia - not in the Tskhinvilli region, but in the center of S.Ossetia itself. We were forced to fire beyond the combat & security zone owing to these air attacks. These were the places where the Georgian troops were controlled from and the operation centers from which our peacekeeping forces & citizens were attacked from.

Roth: But I have told you that residential areas were bombarded by Russia. I experienced this, otherwise I would not have told you. Can it be that perhaps you do not have all the information?

Putin: Perhaps I do not have all the information. Errors during military operation are also possible. Only recently, in Afghanistan, US air forces supposedly engaged in an attack on a Taliban contingent, but destroyed instead, hundreds of civilians who were killed in one strike. This is a first example of military errors.

But the second example is even more convincing. The matter is, that the fire and control posts, the control of the Air Force and the radar stations on the Georgian side, were stationed in residential areas with the aim to restrict the possibility of Russia defending its people in S.Ossetia - using the civilian population - and you - as hostages.

Roth: Well, that is an assumption. Mr Prime Minister, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Bernard Kouchner, has expressed grave concerns that the next center of conflict will be in Ukraine. He mentioned in particular, the Crimean peninsula and the city of Sevastopol as the next center of Russian aggression. Is the Crimea the next target for Russia? The seat of the Black Sea fleet?

Putin: He said, ‘the next center of Russian aggression?’ But this is not the case in the Georgian conflict. We were the victims of aggression.

Our American partners trained the Georgian armed forces, provided substantial funds, and sent a vast number of instructors who mobilized the army there. Instead of searching for solutions to inter-ethnic disputes, they simply pushed one of the parties to the conflict - the Georgian side - to aggressive actions. And we are accused of being the aggressors? What a powerful propaganda machine the West has!

Now you ask, ‘What is Russia’s next target?’ In the current conflict we had no ‘target’ to begin with. Therefore it is misleading to speak of a ‘next target.’ Should we have swung our penknives at them? What is the proportional use of force when tanks and heavy artillery are used against us? Should we have fired with a slingshot? They had to expect to get their teeth knocked out.

Roth: So you exclude targeting the Crimea?

Putin: Allow me to answer and you will be satisfied. The Crimea is not disputed territory. There is no ethnic conflict there in contrast to the conflict between S.Ossetia and Georgia. Russia recognized the current borders of today’s Ukraine a long time ago. We basically concluded all the negotiations regarding the borders. Only demarcation issues are now being discussed. But these are purely technical issues.

The question about ‘targets’ for Russia only serves as provocation. There within the Crimea, complicated processes are in view: Crimean Tatars, Ukrainian people, Russian people, a Slovak population. But this is an internal problem of Ukraine itself.

With Ukraine we have a contract regarding the docking of our fleet in Sevastopol until 2017. We will be guided by this present Treaty.

Roth: Mr Prime Minister, another Minister of Foreign Affairs expressed his concerns, in this case, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr David Miliband. He warned of a new - I use this word as his quotation - ‘cold war’ - between Russia and the West. He warned of an ‘arms race’ beginning. Are we now on the border of a new ‘Ice Age?’ What is your assessment of this situation?

Putin: There is a Russian saying: ‘Stop the thief! The one who screams the loudest, he is the thief!’

Roth: The thief, then, would be, the British minister of foreign affairs…

Putin: This is what you say. Excellent! It is a pleasure to converse with you. Remember, you said that.

Russia seeks no provocation, no tension, with whoever it may be. We want good neighborly partnership relations. If you allow, I will say what I think about this.

Look, there was the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. And there were the Soviet forces in the German Democratic Republic. And we must honestly admit, they were the occupying forces which were left in Germany after the Second World War.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, these occupation forces went away. The threat of the Soviet Union is gone. However, NATO and the US forces in Europe are still there. What for? I will tell you what for.

It is to establish order and discipline in their own US-NATO camp - to hold them within ‘bloc discipline’ they need an outside threat. And because Iran is not entirely suitable for this role, there is a strong movement, initiated by the US, to revive the enemy in Russia. But in Europe, no one is scared.

Roth: On Monday the European Union in Brussels meets. It will talk about sanctions against Russia. Do you or do you not care since you say that the European peoples’ voice will not be represented?

Putin: If I would say we do not care, that we are indifferent, this would not be true. Of course we care. Of course we will watch very carefully what takes place there. We only hope that common sense will prevail.

And we hope that an objective and not a politicized appraisal of the S.Ossetian events will be given. We hope that the actions of the Russian peacekeeping forces will be supported. Whereas actions of the Georgian side which performed the criminal actions, we hope will be denounced.

Roth: In this context I would like to ask this next question. How do you solve this dilemma: On the one hand Russia is keen on cooperating with the EU. You cannot act differently given the economic interchange between you and Europe. On the other hand, Russia wants to play by its own rules. How can you satisfy these two issues at once?

Putin: We are not going to play by any special rules. We want all to world to act in accordance with the same rules referred to as ‘international law.’ We don’t want, however, these notions to be manipulated by anyone. In one region of the world, they will obey these rules, in another region, something else rules, only to satisfy someone’s self interests. We want unified rules that check the interests of all participants.

Roth: Do you mean that the EU plays with different rules in different regions of the world which do not correspond to international law?

Putin: Absolutely, how otherwise? How did they recognize Kosovo? They ignored the territorial national integrity attached to Serbia completely, and the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 which they together discharged and supported. There they could do it. But one wasn’t allowed to proceed in such a way in S.Ossetia and in Abkhazia. Why not?

Roth: Does this mean that Russia is the only one who can define international law? That all others manipulate the situation - does that make it right for Russia to define and dictate international law? Do I understand you correctly?

Putin: You have misunderstood me. Do you recognize the independence of Kosovo? Yes or no?

Roth: Me personally? I am a journalist and it is my job to report.

Putin: I mean Western countries. In fact, all have accepted the unlawful independence of Kosovo. But if you recognized it there, then you must recognize it here - the independence of S.Ossetia and Abkhazia. There is absolutely no difference. No difference at all. This is an invented difference by the West.

There it was an ethnic conflict - and here it is an ethnic conflict. There, it was crime on both sides. And here, probably we can find it. Probably we can find it if we ‘dig.’ There the decision has been taken that these two people cannot live together in one state - and here they do not want to live together in the same state. There is no difference at all and everybody realizes this. This is all twaddle for the West’s unlawful decisions to cover.

This is the law of the jungle and Russia cannot agree to this. Mr Roth, you have been living in Russia for a long time and you speak perfect Russian, nearly accent free. That you have understood me I am not surprised. I am very pleased. Now I would like our European colleagues who will meet on September 1 to talk about this problem, to understand all of this.

Was the UN Resolution 1244 adopted? Yes, it was adopted. Was the territorial integrity of Serbia explicitly mentioned? Yes, explicitly. It was then, in their recognition of the independence of Kosovo, that Resolution 1244 was thrown into the trash. They simply forgot it in spite of our many protests.

They tried to re-interpret it. Turn it inside-out. It was impossible to wiggle out of it — so they simply forgot it. Why? They had orders from the White House and all have obeyed.

If European nations continue with this policy of obeying orders from the White House, then we will just go straight to the source of their policies and of all European affairs, and negotiate with Washington!

Thomas Roth: Given the crisis which is currently present in your relations with the US and the EU, what contribution can you support to cool off this crisis?

Vladimir Putin: First of all, it appears that to a great extent this crisis was provoked by our American friends in order to enhance their election campaign. This is the use of administrative resources in its most deplorable form — in order to ensure the advantage of one candidate. In this case, the advantage of the current ruling party.

Roth: But this is not a fact.

Putin: Perhaps. However, we know that there were many American military advisors in Georgia. This is very bad to arm one side in order to solve the ethnic problems in a military way. At first glance, it is much easier than to lead long term negotiations and to search for compromises. But at the same time, it is a very dangerous way, a way that the US so often chooses, and the order of events has proved this.

American instructors - all of the personnel teaching on using military techniques — where should have they been engaged? At training grounds and training centers. But where were they? In combat areas!

This suggests that the US administration was fully aware of the preparing military action - and moreover, probably participated in this military action. Because without the order of the senior management, American citizens had no right to be present in the conflict area.

Only the local residents, observers of the OSCE, and the Russian peacekeepers were allowed to stay in the security zone. We have, however, found evidence of US citizens in the security zone that belong neither to the first, second, or third category. Why were they there? That is the question! If they will not tell us, and did allow this, then I suspect that it has been done on purpose — to organize a small victorious war.

And should it fail in their planning? Then they compose an enemy image out of Russia, and on this basis, mobilize the voters around one of the presidential candidates. Of course, the candidate they are promoting is of the present ruling party - because only the ruling party has such resources.

Roth: The last question I would like to ask you is a question that I am very interested in myself.

Don’t you think that you personally are in the trap of your authoritarian state? In the existing system, you receive information from your secret services and from other sources which include the highest economic environment — even the mass media in Russia. These, no doubt, are all afraid of telling you anything different from what you are willing to hear.

Is it not then the case that your existing authoritarian system obstructs a broad view for you to see the processes that happen today in Europe, the US, and in other countries?

Putin: Dear Mr Roth, you have characterized our political system as ‘authoritative’ and therefore a political system to be censured. But please, in this context, let us consider the conflict which we are presently discussing.

Don’t you know what has been happening in Georgia in recent years? The mysterious death of Saakashvili’s opponent, Zurab Zhvania, the prime minister? The reprisals against the opposition? The violent dispersion of the opposition demonstration in November last year? The rigging of national elections practically in the conditions of a state of emergency? Then this criminal action in S.Ossetia resulting in many civilian deaths.

And yet for all of this, does the West still tout Georgia as a ‘democratic country’ with which a dialogue must be held and which is to be taken into NATO and perhaps in the EU? The regime in Georgia is a far cry from what the West wants the world to believe.

Yet if another country protects its interests, simply its citizens’ right to life — who have been attacked — 80 of our people were immediately killed by the Georgian attack, 2000 civilians are dead in the end — and what, we are accused of being ‘authoritarian?’

And if we protect the lives of our citizens, we will have Kolbasa [Russian sausage since Russia relies on European food imports] taken away from us? Do we have a choice between Kolbasa and life? We choose life, Mr Roth.

Roth: But in your own country..

Putin: Please - let me to talk about freedom of the press since you brought it up. How have these events been represented in the US media, one of the so-called beacons of democracy?

I was in Beijing when all these events happened. There began the massive bombardment of Tskinvhalli, there were already ground operations of the Georgian troops, many victims, and no one had reported anything about these incidents!

Hardly had we pushed back the aggressor, knocked his teeth out, he hardly had his American weapons dropped in haste and fled - all at once the Western press remembered all about international law & called Russia, the aggressor. All began to wail! Why this selectivity?

Roth: Does not Russia need to care for its own economic interests rather than alienate its European partners?

Putin: Alright, let’s talk about ’sausage’ -the economy. We want normal relations with our European partners. We are a very reliable partner. We have always fulfilled our obligations.

When we built a pipeline system in Germany in the early 60’s, our partners across the Atlantic advised the Germans not to approve this project. You should be aware of this. But then, the leadership of Germany made the right decision and this system was built together. Nowadays, this is one of the reliable sources of energy supply for the German economy.

Let us look at the global economic situation. What are our exports to Europe and also the US? More than 80% of the resources — oil, gas, timber, metals, and fertilizers. That is all that the world economy and also European industry demand. These are all things that can very well be sold on the world markets should there be sanctions against us.

Concerning your imports to us, Russia is a large and reliable market. Does someone want to stop selling to us any longer? Well, then, we will buy these products elsewhere. Who profits from it? Not our partners in Europe. Those across the Atlantic?

We are a victim of aggression and the West’s distorted propaganda. We want an objective analysis of the situation which we are not getting. We only hope that common sense and justice will prevail.