Over the years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has clearly perceived that his imperialist ambitions will not meet much resistance from liberal democracies – at least until his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. If the West fails to help Ukraine repel Putin’s forces, the world will become a much more dangerous place.
LONDON – “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy,” US President George W. Bush said after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in 2001. That turned out to be a colossal misjudgment – perhaps one of the worst in recent history. While British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain may have appeased Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s, at least he never claimed that he “was able to get a sense of his soul.”
My own first meeting with Putin left me with a distinctly different impression. It was 1999, and I was attending a European Union-Russia summit in my capacity as EU commissioner for external affairs. Russian President Boris Yeltsin had pulled out at the last moment, supposedly because he was too ill to travel (speculation abounded about a vodka-related malady). Yeltsin’s prime minister, Putin, would be taking his place.
While we were waiting for him to arrive, there were reports that Grozny, the capital of Russia’s rebel Chechnya province, had been hit by a series of explosions. When Putin – uncharismatic, slightly slippery, and hard-eyed – finally sat down at the table, we asked what had happened. With an innocent and slightly puzzled look, Putin said that he had no idea, but that he would find out and tell us at the lunch break.
LONDON – “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy,” US President George W. Bush said after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in 2001. That turned out to be a colossal misjudgment – perhaps one of the worst in recent history. While British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain may have appeased Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s, at least he never claimed that he “was able to get a sense of his soul.”
My own first meeting with Putin left me with a distinctly different impression. It was 1999, and I was attending a European Union-Russia summit in my capacity as EU commissioner for external affairs. Russian President Boris Yeltsin had pulled out at the last moment, supposedly because he was too ill to travel (speculation abounded about a vodka-related malady). Yeltsin’s prime minister, Putin, would be taking his place.
While we were waiting for him to arrive, there were reports that Grozny, the capital of Russia’s rebel Chechnya province, had been hit by a series of explosions. When Putin – uncharismatic, slightly slippery, and hard-eyed – finally sat down at the table, we asked what had happened. With an innocent and slightly puzzled look, Putin said that he had no idea, but that he would find out and tell us at the lunch break.