VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
А specter is haunting Europe-the specter of Putinism. Confronted by a masterful Russian leader without living peer in brilliance or ruthlessness, the continent sorely lacks leadership and a sense of common purpose. In their muddled reactions to the Kremlin's invasion of Georgia, European states revealed a gap in perceptions that threatens to deepen: Those who suffered under the Soviet yoke sense the return of an existential threat, while those who thrived under the Pax Americana are merely annoyed at being disturbed. As Russian troops and their mercenary auxiliaries savaged a free, democratic country yearning Westward, the world got another lesson in how ineffectual Europe is in a crisis without American leadership.
One thing is for sure. This week's operation in Georgia has displayed the failure of the west's policy of belligerence towards Vladimir Putin's Russia. The policy was meant to weaken Russia, and has strengthened it. The policy was meant to humiliate Russia with Nato encirclement, and has merely fed its neo-imperialism. The policy was meant to show that Russia "understands only firmness" and instead has shown the west as a bunch of tough-talking windbags.
Vladimir Putin, who came to office brooding over the wounds of a humiliated Russia, this week offered proof of its resurgence. So far, the West has been unable to check his thrust into Georgia. He is making decisions that could redraw the map of the Caucasus in Russia's favor - or destroy relationships with Western powers that Russia once sought as strategic partners.
There's little doubt that Vladimir Putin still wears the trousers in the Kremlin. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's boyish new President, may technically be commander-in-chief of Russia's armed forces, but when the bullets began flying in South Ossetia last week, it was to Putin that Russia and the world looked for answers.
In 1999, Russian President Boris Yeltsin named Vladimir Putin, an all-but-unknown former KGB officer, as his successor. Putin imposed a discipline on Russia that had been absent since the Soviet Union's collapse, and he ushered in the beginnings of prosperity thanks in large part to a spike in global oil prices. But he also became one of Washington's harshest critics abroad and an autocratic ruler at home.
Vladimir Putin is no longer the leader of Russia but that appeared to make little difference in France yesterday when he was fêted as a head of state on his first official visit as Prime Minister.
Le nouveau chef du gouvernement, en visite en France pour son premier déplacement à l'étranger, garde les rênes du pouvoir.
