Many believe that reputation is determined mainly by personal relationships between the leaders of the country. Vladimir Putin’s 25-year relationship with foreign leaders provides an interesting case study for that theory.

The Russian President recently invited Narendra Modi for a private dinner at his home, and the Indian Prime Minister said he was deeply moved by the move. China’s Xi Jinping has called Putin his best friend. At the 2024 BRICS summit, Putin said that such relationships provide the basis for a “new world order.”

In the past, many enemy leaders have received mixed treatment.

There was evidence that Putin played mind games with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example. At a 2007 meeting in Sochi where they discussed energy in Europe, the Russian president brought his giant Labrador. Putin knew that Merkel was afraid of dogs – the result of a dog attack years ago – and it interfered with his speech.

In Putin’s visitIn a new two-hour CBC documentary that shows he’s in power in the century, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said he was surprised by Putin’s reaction to Merkel.

“It speaks to the dark, flawed nature of a person who crosses all lines of conversation and human nature,” MacKay said.

Soviet-born Australian journalist Zoya Sheftalovich, who writes for Politico Europe, told the CBC that Putin is “well informed, knows people’s buttons and pushes them.”

Konstantin Eggert, a journalist from Lithuania who works for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, said “he obviously always wants to dominate. He wants to prove that he’s the toughest guy in the room. He always has to have someone to embarrass. .”

Putin’s support for foreign leaders appears to be informed by the knowledge that he will outrank them. They are playing the long game to get what they want. And they seem to be happy with the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency, especially since Trump has said a lot of bad things about Ukraine and NATO.

Luke Harding, former Guardian Moscow bureau chief and author Attack: The Inside Story of Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s War for Survivalsays Putin “thinks Western leaders are stupid and temporary.”

“They are beautiful butterflies that fly for a while and then die when winter sets in. Whereas Putin, who we know is close to the long-lasting Stalin, doesn’t have to worry about difficult things like elections. He knows what he’s been doing for two years, four years.”

‘We got Putin wrong’

After Putin became president in 2000, George W. Bush was elected president of the United States. He came to meet Putin at a meeting in Slovenia, where he shared his recent judgment of his Russian counterpart, famously saying, “I looked the man in the eye… I could sense his soul.”

“I think George W. Bush is regretting that he said that now, because it’s not clear where Putin’s life is,” John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser who has met with Putin several times, told the CBC.

“But (the comments) reflect the hope that we feel that the Cold War is over, that we can find a way to resolve the conflict and work together against what we saw as common threats,” Bolton said. “I think in retrospect we can see that we misjudged Putin.”

SEE | Former Canadian Minister Peter MacKay on Putin:

Former Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay talks about the tense meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

It’s not just Americans who seem to be falling prey to Putin’s rhetoric. During a visit to the United Kingdom in 2003, he received royal treatment, touring London alongside the Queen in a horse-drawn carriage. It was a surprise for the non-Russian journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza.

“In fact the same week that Vladimir Putin’s government aired the last independent television program (in Russia), he received a trip to London and boarded with the Queen of England,” Kara-Murza told the CBC.

He points out that Putin also had political opponents arrested and imprisoned. “It was obvious from the beginning, however… The white democratic countries have deliberately chosen to ignore the violence of domestic violence.”

The CBC requested an interview with Putin, but his press secretary declined the invitation.

Great interest in Ukraine

Since 2012, Putin has become more powerful with the West, which was evident in his first secret meeting with the French president Francois Hollande. Putin was concerned about NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe and the missiles deployed there.

As Hollande told the CBC, “He asked for a paper, which is very rare for a meeting between heads of state. He directly threatened his security already he wanted to play the victim – ‘I’m being bullied’ – to better prove what he could do to protect himself.”

Hollande was impressed by Putin’s views during their meeting. It is no coincidence that he was trained by the KGB. The KGB kept saying ‘I threaten you, but I hug you like you’re in a relationship.’ Always playing a double game: ‘I’m threatening you, but I’m ready to talk.’

By 2013, Putin had turned his back on Ukraine, urging Russian President Viktor Yanukovych to block a proposed new deal with Europe. Many pro-white Ukrainians rebelled, and Kyiv’s Maidan Square was filled with anti-Russian protests, encouraged by European and American politicians.

Yanukovych tried to end the Maidan protests with police violence, but the protests resisted. After being seriously injured, Yanukovych fled the country by helicopter at night.

Politico reporter Sheftalovich says it was difficult for Putin.

“He saw Ukraine as a part of Russia, and he saw the Euro Maidan as the first stage of the uprising that could eventually be removed from power. So it was not acceptable to him that the Euro Maidan swept and that these protests removed his man from the job.”

Amid the festive celebrations in Kyiv, Putin was plotting his revenge. He decided to end Ukraine by annexing Crimea in the south and most of the Russian-speaking areas in the east of the country. In 2014, they sent Russian soldiers without markings on their uniforms to Crimea. They became known as “the little green men.”

When asked about them, Putin said they have nothing to do with Russia. Meanwhile, Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists began attacking Ukrainian forces in the Russian-speaking eastern Donbas.

Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion who left the game to work against the Putin regime, saw Crimea as a turning point.

“That was the best way to tell the West that, you know, they don’t play by the rules anymore…. Addition is the most important thing to destroy the world order. Dictators, they are opportunists. Even Hitler was an opportunist. , or Stalin. This is what made them so powerful.

The disastrous G20 summit

Again, the Western response to Putin’s actions appears weak. He was invited to the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy in France in June 2014. Hollande greeted him as an honored guest.

The new president, pro-Western Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, was also present. Putin agreed to have a brief meeting with Poroshenko, who knew what he was up against.

“I have a few suggestions for those who have plans to meet with Putin,” he told the CBC. “Point number 1, don’t trust Putin. He’s a KGB officer who has learned to lie. Second, please don’t be afraid of Putin, because if you’re afraid of Putin, this is feeding him. Go away. Until we all let him go.

At the G20 summit a few months later in Australia, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried a more difficult approach.

According to MacKay, “Vladimir Putin came to this meeting with other world leaders and he went to our minister… Prime Minister Harper looked at him and said, ‘You need to get out of Crimea.’ And Putin said, ‘We are not in Crimea.’

“That was the beginning of the end of Russia’s participation in the G8, because everyone in the room knew they were lying.”

Amid mounting threats and a stalemate in the war with Ukraine, Putin appears to have returned to his waiting game as he watches the clock run out on President Joe Biden, who led NATO’s campaign to defend Ukraine.

Although many Western leaders were surprised by Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Hollande said: “There is a great deal of tension between the Europeans and Putin, and more broadly, the West and Putin.

“The Europeans do not want to go to war. For them, war has a terrible history, the history of the 20th century, and there is no reason to think that war is possible on the continent today.

“But for Putin, war is possible. It is a compromise. We are peaceful, democratic countries that do not like death. For Putin, death is part of the process. “

SEE | Full text of Putin’s visit: