MOSCOW, 30 September 2003 — President Vladimir Putin was back in Moscow yesterday after winning another warm endorsement from George W. Bush and deftly jarring the US administration into admitting that Russia was still a power to be reckoned with.
Bush concluded another back-slapping press conference with Putin at Camp David this weekend by warmly telling his Russian counterpart: “Good job.”
He appeared to be referring to Putin’s performance at a briefing in which the Kremlin chief did his best to brush aside any remaining differences over Iraq.
Bush seemed gratified. Russia appeared to have moved out of the anti-war coalition it that had struck with Germany and France and now looked to be more focused on issues like bilateral trade and military cooperation.
“One of the things that interests me about Vladimir’s comments was that he recognizes that we cannot allow power vacuums to exist into which rogue nations will enhance their capacity to hurt free nations,” said Bush in reference to Iraq.
But those comments came only moments after Putin had thrown the White House an unexpected curve-ball that US officials admitted yesterday took everyone by surprise.
Putin’s message was striking but simple: The only reason why Russia cooperated with the United States in the post-Sept. 11 campaign in Afghanistan was because the Russian leader had developed a personal liking for Bush.
“And if by that time president Bush and I had not formed an appropriate relationship — as we have — no one knows what turn of events the developments in Afghanistan would have taken,” Putin said with a wry grin.
Analysts widely interpreted those comments as a veiled threat against the US administration, delivered at a time when everyone was expecting Putin to only redouble his efforts to confirm his alliance with Washington.
A US official hinted broadly Monday that Bush was stunned by Putin’s remarks.
“This was something new to me, and I think even the president (Bush) has said that this is something that was new to him,” said Moscow’s US Ambassador Alexander Vershbow in reference to Putin’s comments on Afghanistan.
But Putin did not stop there.
Instead he pressed ahead by underlining the importance of Russia — the world’s No. 1 natural gas and second-largest oil exporter — to US energy interests.
“It is difficult to say what prices would be now — how high prices for fuel in international energy markets would be now if we had not had such dialogue” with Bush, Putin said.
Bush did not respond directly to Putin’s second warning.
He did, however, all but endorse Putin’s campaign in separatist Chechnya — something that Europe has refused to do — by announcing that “I respect President Putin’s vision for Russia: a country at peace within its borders, with its neighbors and with the world.”
The US ambassador said Bush and Putin had a “lively” discussion on Chechnya.
But he stressed that Washington supported Russia’s efforts to hold a controversial presidential election in Chechnya on Oct. 5 in which the pro-Kremlin candidate Akhmad Kadyrov is seen as the certain winner.
Vershbow said the United States stood “shoulder to shoulder in the fight against terrorists” — comments that come as music to the ears for a Russian leader that spent half of his first term in office defending the Chechen campaign against stinging Western criticism. Putin’s bravado in Camp David prompted other senior Russian officials to take an uncharacteristically hard line on the United States.
“We need to pat the Americans on the head and at the same time be prepared to defend ourselves against their attempts to throw themselves into our background — whether it is the Caucasus or Central Asia,” said the lower house of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee chief Dmitry Rogozin.
“The Americans view themselves as the saviors of the world — and that is where their aggression comes from,” Rogozin told Moscow Echo radio.
