LESS THAN THREE months after being made Acting President – and, more significantly, just a fortnight before the election which would confirm his appointment as head of state – Putin pulled off a masterstroke in international diplomacy. He picked up the telephone in his Kremlin office and called Tony Blair in London: ‘Come to Russia so we can get to know each other. Bring your wife; it will be a social occasion’.
Blair’s antennae twitched. How should he respond? Putin was ostensibly inviting Tony and Cherie to St Petersburg to join him and Lyudmila at a gala performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s opera War and Peace at the Mariinsky Theatre, where his close friend Valery Gergiev was artistic director. It was an offer they could hardly turn down, even though it was transparently obvious that the new Russian leader was really fixing an unofficial summit meeting with the British Prime Minister. The role had fallen to Blair because President Clinton was in his last year of office, there would soon be a new leader in the Oval Office and, anyway, Putin had already made his acquaintance.
As one of several candidates in the forthcoming election, Putin was in no position to issue a formal invitation for Blair to meet him in Moscow. Had he done so, Blair would have been obliged also to meet with the other candidates, and that would have meant spending time with – God forbid! – the Communist Party’s Gennady Zyuganov. There was also considerable suspicion in the United Kingdom about this former KGB man taking the helm of the old enemy, who was already facing huge human rights issues over his aggressive stance on the conflict in Chechnya. But – reassured by his spin doctors that meeting the man who seemed certain to become the next democratically-elected President of Russia before the month was out could be presented as a positive move – he rang Putin back to say he and Cherie would be delighted to join him at the opera. He made one concession to those of his cabinet who opposed the plan – yes, he would raise the issue of human rights in Chechnya.
The Blairs set off for St Petersburg on Friday 10 March 2000. During the flight Blair and his press secretary Alastair Campbell spent time ‘schmoozing with the hacks’, in Campbell’s evocative phrase. The plane landed late at night and John Stoddart, the photographer hired to accompany the Blairs, travelled into St Petersburg with them in a green minibus. Both Blairs appeared nervous: ‘She was heavily pregnant with her fourth baby, but Tony was the one who seemed to need mothering,’ says Stoddart. ‘She kept talking about the shirts she had packed for him and he said: “I hope you’ve packed the pink one, I like the pink one”.’
Putin had already paved the way for a smooth discussion with Blair. He had indicated that he was prepared to bypass problems which divided not just Russia and the UK but also Russia and Europe – in particular, the disagreements over Chechnya – ‘Russia’s legal sore spot’, as he knew one senior British minister had described it. He would not insist on raising such contentious details as British monetary interests in Chechnya, an issue which would later be the topic of a major discussion with Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, the President of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences.
Furthermore, Putin was also prepared to bury the hatchet over the thorny issue of Russia forging closer co-operation with NATO, which had been on hold because of Russia’s disapproval of NATO’s role in Kosovo. Going against advice from both his defence and foreign ministries, Putin had decided to resurrect plans for the opening of a NATO military liaison mission in Moscow, as well as a staff information office. His defence minister had particularly advised against him having anything to do with the organisation’s secretary-general, Lord (George) Robertson, unless the latter made a formal apology for its action in the Balkans.
Realising that Robertson was never going to do that, Putin had nevertheless invited him to Moscow. ‘He just cut through the crap,’ is how one senior NATO staff officer puts it. ‘He asked George to visit unconditionally. He was putting his stamp on things. George was certainly taken aback, but he was flattered and of course he accepted.’ Putin never had any intention of Russia joining NATO. He was later to say (in a December 2007 interview with Time magazine) ‘I would not say that NATO is the stinking corpse of the Cold War. But it is certainly something that is a holdover from the past. There is no point in pretending otherwise: first NATO was created and then, in response, the Warsaw Pact was created. It was two military and political blocs opposing each other. How, for example, can NATO fight terrorism? Did NATO prevent the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States that killed thousands? Where was NATO to respond to this danger, to eliminate it, to protect America from it?’ He added that Russia would not join a military-political bloc ‘in order to limit its sovereignty, because participation in a bloc is, of course, a restriction of sovereignty’.
But this was no time to express such views and he merely nodded each time Robertson pressed the matter. Meeting the secretary-general was simply a diplomatic task the new leader had to perform, and he carried it out superbly, as Robertson reported back to a doubtful Blair.
With the main stumbling block cleared, an agenda was drawn up for the Putin-Blair meeting, which had little to do with a night at the opera. The subjects to be discussed included organised crime, the forthcoming G8 summit, closer economic ties between the two nations, the Balkans and – as a concession to the British Prime Minister – Chechnya.
On Sunday morning, Tony Blair was in good spirits when he headed off in an official Zil limousine to meet Putin at Peter the Great’s magnificent Summer Palace at Peterhof. The British ambassador, Sir Roderic Lyne, had advised him to be ‘friendly without being overly-chummy, in case he turned out to be in disfavour or in six months time, in real trouble’. Putin welcomed Blair effusively and took him on a long tour of the palace which ended up in a grand, rather dark room where the meeting would take place.
IT’S NOT only world leaders who get invited to the President’s country residence.
Here Putin entertains a group of Russian youth activists.
Blair was somewhat taken aback to discover that the two leaders would be sitting on raised thrones, with their respective officials fanning away from them. He was used to conducting such meetings on a relatively informal basis in a study at 10 Downing Street with everyone crammed into armchairs and sofas that had seen better days. He was clearly thrown to be faced with Russian bureaucrats watching their trainee President like hawks, ready to report back to their respective bosses on his performance.
Despite the acting President’s attempt to avoid contentious issues, Chechnya inevitably became the hot topic. Blair set out British concerns in the plausible tones of a barrister addressing a jury and Putin responded that at least his views were more balanced than those of the French. ‘You got the strong impression that he’d not just spent the entire previous night mugging up on his brief, but he’d learned it all by heart,’ says a senior British diplomat who was present throughout the meeting. ‘You got the impression a gramophone record had been switched on. This was still the early days of the [second] Chechen War, but the moment Tony raised it, Putin delivered a very long response – it probably took about 10 minutes, but it seemed to go on much longer – a completely prepared, uninterrupted and well-rehearsed line that left little room for animated discussion.’ Putin had simply prepared himself well for the meeting, so well that it was difficult for Blair to participate in the discussion on an equal footing; it was apparent Blair had limited detailed knowledge of the situation in Chechnya and knew only the general outlines. Then Putin launched into his tirade. The thrust of his argument was that the war had a criminal basis: the criminals maintained that their motivation was religious but, in fact, they were aggressive extremists constituting a real threat to Russia. That threat emanated from terrorists; criminal elements were threatening to break up the Federation. Russians had found themselves fighting Arabs, the Taliban and Muslims from Pakistan, Putin argued, but their real opponents were criminals who only pretended that their motivation was religious.
Blair was caught off-guard. The promise of a debate on human rights in Chechnya and the destruction of Grozny had been swept aside. Instead he was shown some privately made videos of Chechens torturing Russian soldiers and officers, decapitating them and shooting them in the presence of Shamil Basayev. There were 17 episodes in all, a scary digest of the recent raid around Dagestan. Blair learnt later from his intelligence sources that the films were genuine. Both men were fired up by their Chechen discussion and, as Alastair Campbell recorded in his diary: ‘it was a relief when they got on to the domestic front, economic reform, developing a market economy’.
After the meeting the two leaders gave a press conference in a grand, mirrored ballroom. The lecterns had obviously been placed some distance apart in order to mitigate the fact that Putin was a half a foot shorter than the British PM. There were a number of questions from newsmen on the subject of investment. Putin had obviously anticipated them and read out a long prepared statement. ‘It was terribly old-speak,’ the British diplomat recalls, ‘and I remember standing there listening to it and thinking: “This man is marketing himself as somebody who is here to reform and modernise the Russian economy”. Mind you, he’d already made a number of speeches to that effect including his Millennium Statement. That was a very important manifesto – the only one he put out prior to the election on 26 March. I suspect some old-timer in the Ministry of Foreign Trade who’d been there since the early days of the Soviet Union must have had an input into his speech because it assumed that investment was something done by governments and talked about Britain’s great shipbuilding industry which we hadn’t had for 40 years. You came away from that thinking that this was a guy who was not yet up to speed on market economies.’
When they retired to lunch, an atmosphere of gloom pervaded the room. Blair’s hopes of making Putin his new best friend had been quashed, while Putin realised that his own what-I-say-goes message was not sinking in. The Russians were happy that their man had not stepped out of line, but the small British team seemed disconsolate. It had been, they reflected, a stilted two-hour meeting followed by a mediocre press conference. The vibes improved, however, as the lunch progressed and the presence of Cherie and Lyudmila helped to lighten the mood. The women were then taken on a short sightseeing tour prior to their husbands’ second round of talks, which were convened in another equally grand room in the Hermitage.
Diplomat Sir Roderic Lyne had the idea that all of the officials should leave the two leaders to get on with it for the afternoon, with just their interpreters present. He put it to Blair, who readily agreed, but the Russians were having none of it, especially those from the Defence Ministry, who seemed not to trust their President any more than he appeared to like them. ‘Bear in mind that the men from the Russian Foreign Ministry and the KGB have never got on and the thought that a former KGB officer – not even a very senior one – was about to become their elected president appalled them,’ the senior British diplomat says. ‘So the Russians insisted on marching back into the room with Mr Putin and Mr Blair, who duly reascended their thrones for the required photo call with all of us gathered around. Once that was over one of our number said to Tony – on cue, mind – “Would you rather this next conversation was just between the two of you?” He replied: ”Yes, I think that would be a good idea”. So we all got up and walked out of the room. The Russians had no alternative but to leave as well. They were furious, but I think that the Acting President was as amused as he was pleased. He obviously knew the whole thing had been stage-managed.’
Blair later told his team that not only had the one-to-one session gone infinitely better than the first one, but that he and Putin had actually developed something of a rapport, which was exactly what the President’s old guard had feared. They had nothing to fear: Putin was not about to become a member of the Blair fan club. Nevertheless, they seemed on excellent terms as they sat side-by-side in their box at the Mariinsky Theatre that night, even if the opera was not to pop-loving Blair’s taste. Cherie Blair recalled the evening with a shudder, complaining later that ‘the opera seemed endless’. She added: ‘As I was then six months pregnant with Leo, the trip wasn’t easy. Although the hotel was like an oven, outside it was bitterly cold.’
Determined that his visitors should not go home without a lighter moment to remember from their trip, Putin took the couple to a restaurant and, during the meal, asked the Prime Minister if he knew there were bears on the street in that part of the world. ‘Tony looked at him with that sort of vacant look he can put on when he doesn’t know what to say and shrugged his shoulders,’ says someone who witnessed the event. ‘With that Putin grabbed him by the arm and took him to the window where – lo and behold – there was a huge bear on the pavement outside. Of course the bear had a chain around one ankle and there was a trainer not far away holding the other end. But Putin was emphasising a point he had made throughout the visit: he might be a novice but he was capable of pulling the wool over the eyes of a major player on the world stage. It ought to have taught Blair a lesson...’
On the flight back to London Blair gave an upbeat account of his meetings to the attendant press corps, making it clear that if nothing else he, Cherie and the Putins were now good friends. On the business front, Blair said he had found Putin to be ‘highly intelligent with a focused view of what he wants to achieve in Russia… Given what Russia has been through and given the economic task of reconstruction, it’s not surprising he believes in a Russia which is ordered and strong, but also democratic and liberal.’ He gave no hint of how difficult he had found it to engage with Putin on matters that he had said were important before leaving home. When reporters tried to draw him on how tough he had been when it came to Chechnya, he said there had been human rights abuses on both sides.
Privately Blair had to concede that he was not dealing with a Boris Yeltsin figure, but a new, strong Russian leader who would expect him to be better prepared for any future meetings, especially when Chechnya was on the agenda.
IN THE RUN-UP to the presidential election Putin inevitably found himself faced with skeletons from his past. Marina Salye, the liberal politician who had called on Mayor Sobchak to dismiss him following alleged misappropriation of funds, campaigned against Yeltsin’s appointed successor, drawing attention to the results of her St Petersburg investigation. In somewhat dramatic interviews which, she said, turned her into a ‘world media star’, Salye claimed ‘they’re going to kill me’ before retiring to a remote house in the country. Few took her claims seriously, and even she was forced to deny one report that Putin had sent her a telegram on New Year’s Day 2001 which read ‘Here is wishing you good health... and the opportunity to use it’! Salye compounded her fears by reminding interviewers that St Petersburg’s other leading liberal politician, Galina Starovoitova, was murdered just yards from her front door on November 20 1998.
PUTIN’S SELECTION as President on 26 March 2000 was more a coronation than an election. His 53 per cent of the poll in the first ballot assured him of a comfortable ride to the Kremlin. Apart from voting at his local polling station, an obligatory task, he showed little interest in the detail of the event, taking time out to ski in the hours leading up to the declaration of the results.
The Communists’ leader Gennady Zyuganov came second with 29 per cent, and the egotistical liberal Grigory Yavlinsky third with six per cent. At 47, Putin became Russia’s youngest president since Stalin when he was inaugurated in the Great Kremlin Palace on Sunday 7 May. Two former presidents, Yeltsin and Gorbachev, stood with the country’s leading politicians, foreign ambassadors, judges, religious leaders and members of Putin’s family to watch their new leader take the long walk along the red carpet that led him through the magnificent 19th century building. As 30 cannons fired a presidential salute and a troop of the Kremlin guard marched past to the accompaniment of a military band, the boy from Baskov Lane was sworn in as Russia’s second elected president.
The reporters from Time magazine were unfairly merciless in their appraisal: ‘He is so colourless, so ordinary a man you could not pick him out of a crowd,’ they wrote. ‘Prying eyes would slide right by the slight, spare figure with the bland, expressionless face.’ And once again it was his eyes that caught their attention. ‘Look at his eyes,’ they wrote. ‘Blue as steel. Cold as the Siberian ice. They bore into you, but you cannot penetrate them. Sometimes they’re a mirror, reflecting what you want to see. Sometimes they’re a mask, disguising real intentions. Those eyes are Putin’s strongest feature – not counting his unflinching will.’
Later Putin and Lyudmila attended a service of blessing conducted by Patriach Alexei II in the Kremlin’s onion-domed Annunciation Cathedral. He was visibly more relaxed treading in the footsteps of the Tsars than he had been standing where Stalin had once stood.
‘I did everything I could,’ Yeltsin had said in ending his resignation speech. ‘A new generation is coming that will do it more and do it better.’