Branding him a killer won’t bother Putin. He thinks Biden is bluffing

Fears are growing that Putin has outmanoeuvred the West again as his troops mass on Ukraine’s border.

Vladimir Putin likes to promote a virile, action man image and may well relish being described as a killer by Joe Biden.

George W Bush, a few months into his presidency, walked out of a 16th century castle in Slovenia on a summer’s day in 2001 to announce that he had looked into the eyes of Vladimir Putin.

“I was able to get a sense of his soul,” Bush said. “I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.”

I recall the response of a French journalist from Le Monde, standing next to me in the grounds of the castle at the post-summit press conference that day: she chuckled in disbelief.

Two decades later, another recently elected US president issued a starkly different appraisal. Joe Biden said he had once told Putin that the Russian President has no soul. Asked in a television interview last month if he thinks the top man in the Kremlin is a “killer”, Biden replied: “Yes, I do.”

That deviated dramatically from his predecessor’s fawning deference to Putin. Donald Trump publicly sided with the former KGB officer against US intelligence services in refusing to accept that Russia meddled in the US election that brought him to power in 2016.

Will the tough talk from Biden and sanctions announced by the US and Britain on Thursday in response to Russia’s “malign behaviour” be enough to halt Russia’s assault on Western democracy?

Putin has already run rings around four American presidents and there were no immediate signs of him being cowed by a fifth. On the contrary, Biden appears to have blinked first, recalling two US warships that were expected in the Black Sea last week after Russia’s deputy foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, warned them to stay away “for their own good”.

The ships were to have gone on Black Sea patrol in a show of support for Ukraine after Putin’s largest deployment of troops, tanks and missile launchers near the border since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The military build-up has raised fears that he is preparing another assault on his neighbour.

Biden appears to have blinked first, recalling two US warships that were expected in the Black Sea, after Russia’s deputy foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, warned them to stay away “for their own good”. Picture: AFP

Sanctions imposed after Putin took control of Crimea have not stopped him thumbing his nose at the West. There was little optimism last week that measures imposed in response to Russian cyberattacks and election interference would have any more impact on a figure who has inspired autocrats everywhere.

Putin has recently turned more darkly authoritarian, changing the constitution to allow him to rule until 2036. He has cemented his “killer” reputation by stepping up the pursuit of his enemies, some of whom have been eliminated in overt and demonstrative ways.

Alexei Navalny, the lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner, was lucky to survive an attempt on his life with a nerve agent which, evidence strongly suggests, was administered by state security agents. He was reported last week to be severely ill, supporters complaining that he is being denied medical attention, after being jailed for 2½ years for a parole violation. His wife, Yulia, said he had lost 13kg. “I’ve never seen skin so tight around one’s skull,” she said.

Alexei Navalny, the lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner, was lucky to survive an attempt on his life with a nerve agent which, evidence strongly suggests, was administered by state security agents. Picture: AFP

Russia experts agreed grimly that Putin, embarrassed over a Navalny video exposing his luxury palace on the Black Sea, may be happy to let his opponent die in prison if he cannot be “broken” into begging for mercy.

“We know they tried to kill Navalny once, why would they stop now?” asked Fiona Hill, who was senior director for European and Russian affairs on Trump’s national security council. Russia, she said, had gone to extremes by “smearing people’s underpants” with novichok, the nerve agent sprayed on Navalny’s underwear last August in Siberia — and smeared on the doorknob of Sergei Skripal, the defector, who was targeted in Salisbury in 2018.

Ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, 33, who were poisoned by a Russian-developed Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, England.

“Putin’s pretty cynical,” Hill said, arguing that the Russian president craves international recognition and fears being supplanted by China as America’s chief rival. “He wants to be the next biggest kid on the block,” she added.

If that is his goal, the display of muscle on the Ukrainian border may have paid off. On Tuesday, Biden called Putin to propose a summit in a “third country” and he accepted. Announcing the expulsion of ten American diplomats on Friday in retaliation for US sanctions, Sergei Lavrov, the foreign Minister, said Russia was still positive about the idea of a meeting and was considering how it could be arranged.

“Putin might have concluded that he’s tested Biden and the administration has failed the test,” said James Sherr, senior fellow at the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, referring to the recall of US warships from the Black Sea. “They [the Russians] hear the tough rhetoric, see the tough body language. But they are sceptical of words not backed up by the kind of action they respect and fear.”

He went on: “I have never believed that sanctions would deter Putin. They have damaged Russia’s economy, adding to problems building up in society. But they are coping with it.”

Melinda Haring, of the Atlantic Council, another think tank, said she approved of Biden’s tough language. “Is Putin a killer? I like it that Biden is calling a spade a spade. There’s no reason to pretend otherwise. Why pussyfoot around?”

Fiona Hill, who was senior director for European and Russian affairs on Trump’s national security council says Putin “wants to be the next biggest kid on the block”. Picture: AFP

She added, however, that “we need more than slaps on the wrist, more than sanctions. No real, significant cost has ever been imposed on Putin. Might is right. He can get away with it.”

Putin’s mastery of “political technologies”, a shadowy field involving the dissemination of fake or misleading information, has given Russia an influence out of all proportion to its puny, energy- dependent economy. Some of those familiar with his dark arts despair at how the West has been outclassed by him.

“We’re walking around thinking the game is still on, but Putin has already won,” said Peter Pomerantsev, a Soviet-born British author of two books about Russian disinformation and propaganda who worked for years in television production in Moscow. “Our words mean nothing. Our values mean nothing. All of the grand statements about the world order mean nothing.”

Britain’s failure to respond to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko — a Russian KGB defector who became a British citizen and was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2006 — was a mistake, according to an intelligence source who said: “The idea this could be done in foreign jurisdictions without the acquiescence of Putin is not conceivable.”

Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2006. Picture: AFP

Another British error was allowing “Londongrad” to be corrupted by its embrace of new wealth from Russia, heedless of the criminal and KGB forces behind it, according to Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform.

“We have allowed a kleptocratic system to be run through our real estate, our overseas territories, it’s hugely damaging,” Bond said.

“We thought we’d be able to flush out criminality and all the bad stuff but Russia has reversed our plumbing, it has introduced bad governance into our system, we haven’t really combated money laundering.”

Vladimir Putin's dog Koni with Angela Merkel in 2007. Picture: AFP

Russia’s malevolent influence is embodied, for some critics, in Putin. A judo expert who belonged to an adolescent gang growing up on the streets of St Petersburg, Putin likes to promote a virile, action man image and may well relish being described as a killer by Biden. “Before he was a KGB guy he was basically a street thug - respect is very important for him,” said Bond, who served as a British diplomat in Moscow in the 1990s. “Even when he (Putin) decides to be nice, there’s a needle,” the intelligence source said. “He’s testing you all the time.”

Putin certainly knows how to destabilise foreign leaders. Germany’s Angela Merkel learnt this to her cost when the Russian president unleashed his labrador on her during a meeting, knowing that she has been afraid of dogs ever since being bitten by one as a young woman. Nicolas Sarkozy emerged from a meeting with Putin in 2007 grinning and swaying from side to side. It was assumed that Putin had tricked the teetotal French president into drinking vodka.

As for Bush, “Putin was far ahead of him”, said Christian Caryl, a US journalist who covered Russia for Newsweek and met Putin twice in the early 2000s.

“People thought Bush’s comments about looking into Putin’s soul were hilarious,” he added. “When you meet the guy, he’s utterly opaque. He’s a cold, calculating politician and super smart — but not afraid to take out a knife if he has to.”

The Times