Word: putin
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Secret Service agents now know that when Russian President Vladimir Putin is the tour guide, they're going to have their hands full. While giving President Bush what was supposed to be a carefully scripted tour of the Kremlin grounds, Putin decided to take his guest to see his private study. On the way the two leaders found themselves abruptly plunged into a crowd of hundreds of Russian tourists in the Kremlin's Cathedral Square. As panicked agents scrambled to protect Bush and his wife, a White House official was heard shouting above the din, "I can't find...
...Moscow was a breeze of official events compared with St. Petersburg, Putin's hometown. The Russian leader insisted on guiding Bush through a dizzying day of sightseeing in the grand, canal-crossed city. Bush, normally more comfortable with baseball on TV and pickup tours of his Texas ranch, took in Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son at the Hermitage and a ballet at the Mariinsky Theater. At the Hermitage, Putin was asked whether he considered Bush an "art lover." Putin replied, artfully, that the perception in Europe that Americans don't appreciate art is "deeply mistaken...
...formed a strategic alliance with NATO and even won the Miss Universe contest. But in some ways the most momentous prize came when the E.U. crowned Russia a full market economy. The move will make it easier for Russia to contest anti-dumping claims, which President Vladimir Putin says could cost more than $1 billion this year, while allowing the country to benefit from lower tariffs and raising its hopes of joining the World Trade Organization. Europe stands to benefit too. The Russian economy grew an impressive 8% in 2000 and 5% in 2001, and with trade of $76.3 billion...
Bush's advisers say the key to his attitude adjustment regarding Putin was the two leaders' first encounter, in Ljubljana, Slovenia, last June; Bush decided within two hours of meeting him that Putin was a man he could trust. Bush's remarks--"I looked the man in the eye," he said, and "I was able to get a sense of his soul"--elicited snickers from journalists and grimaces from his advisers, who feared Bush was swooning over Putin the way they had accused Clinton of falling for Yeltsin. Former Clintonites rolled their eyes at the irony. "I've known Putin...
Bush's effusions notwithstanding, the lovefest in Ljubljana was more a product of strategy than chemistry. At a White House briefing with outside experts before the summit, Bush telegraphed an intense desire for his first encounter with Putin to go smoothly. In the first few months after taking office, Bush was under constant assault by European allies for his unilateralist foreign policy, including his snubbing of Moscow. Among the signs of disrespect: the ouster from the U.S. of 50 alleged Russian diplomat-spies in March 2001, the five-month delay before setting a first Bush-Putin meeting, and the threat...