Putin flexes muscle, hosts Bush

SOCHI, Russia — One day before Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to receive President Bush this weekend for the last meeting between the two leaders, the former KGB agent allowed himself to reflect on the end of his presidency.

“These were complex years both in Russia’s history and in the relations of Russia with its neighbors,” Mr. Putin said of his eight years in office, at an hourlong press conference near the end of the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania.

“These were years of the rebirth of Russia as a powerful and independent state with its own views, and the dialogue was and is not easy,” he said.

Russia’s resurgence as a world power and Mr. Putin’s political muscle have been on display in the past few days, even as he prepares to hand over power, formally at least, to a handpicked successor next month.

Mr. Putin played gracious host to Mr. Bush and first lady Laura Bush at a three-hour dinner in his summer home last night on the Black Sea, but the White House announced there would be no hoped-for missile-defense deal with the Russians this weekend.

Mr. Putin’s rebuff yesterday followed the NATO summit, where major U.S. allies in Europe, under pressure from the Kremlin, rejected Mr. Bush’s pleas to invite two former Soviet republics into the alliance’s membership process.

But in spite of the high-stakes diplomatic arm wrestling, Mr. Bush arrived here last night for a dinner with Mr. Putin. The mood was upbeat, friendly and even playful. The two leaders dined on venison fillet and red caviar, koulebyaka with salmon and king crab meat, and then joined a group of Russian dancers on stage during the postprandial entertainment.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin did “a Russian version of the African move,” said White House press secretary Dana Perino, in a reference to Mr. Bush’s now-famous dancing with an African troupe at the White House last summer.

Although Mrs. Perino said after the dinner that it had been “a really wonderful evening,” she earlier had told reporters on Air Force One there would be no breakthrough on missile defense.

The U.S. plans to put radar systems and interceptor missiles in two former communist-bloc countries to counter possible nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Russia wants to be able to inspect, monitor and have “equal access” to the facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic and also has suggested some of the system operations be run from Moscow. The U.S. is concerned such guarantees would violate Polish and Czech sovereignty.

Mr. Bush will meet with Mr. Putin this morning for an hour and President-elect Dmitry Medvedev for a half-hour, hold a press conference with Mr. Putin, and then have a “working lunch” with the two men before flying home. Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin are expected to emphasize the positive side of their unusually personal and candid relationship, which began in 2001 when Mr. Bush said he had looked into Mr. Putin’s eyes and “got a sense of his soul.”

Since then, Mr. Bush has acknowledged that Mr. Putin, who is expected to hold the real power in Russia as Mr. Medvedev’s prime minister, is a “pretty tough character,” with whom he’s had some “diplomatic head butts.”

Yet Mr. Bush has said that despite the crackdowns on dissent by Mr. Putin’s increasingly autocratic regime and the Russian leader’s sometimes belligerent public comments, he has wanted to maintain good relations between the United States and Russia.

The two alpha males also genuinely seem to like each other, but the relational harmony can’t paper over the fact that Russia, awash in oil wealth and run with an iron hand, increasingly sees itself as the one holding the cards.

“What can you do without Russia? Well, nothing,” Mr. Putin said during his press conference Friday.

On missile defense, Mr. Bush had said recently he was “optimistic” about reaching an agreement, and White House officials said they felt they were making progress in allaying Russian fears that the radar and missile interceptors were aimed at them.

But on Friday, Mr. Putin made clear that the Russian and U.S. positions were still far apart, calling the U.S. offer “worse than our proposal.”

At the NATO summit, Mr. Bush pressed for Ukraine and Georgia to be allowed into the alliance’s membership action plan, arguing Russia would benefit from having “democracies on her border.”

Mr. Putin on Friday called this comment “nonsense.”

“I find this a very strange thesis. Just think about how it sounds,” Mr. Putin said. “If this or that country is a member of NATO, it is democratic; and if not, it is not democratic.”

For his part, Mr. Bush also plans to speak bluntly today about Russia’s anti-democratic shift under Mr. Putin.

“In regards to the issue that the president brings up every time with President Putin, regarding tolerance of minority rights or diversification of views, political freedoms, press freedom, the president will continue to bring those up,” Mrs. Perino said. “And he has no plans to shy away from doing that.”

Last night, however, there were only jokes and smiles.

Mr. Bush received a briefing from Russian officials involved with planning the 2014 Winter Olympics, which will be held here in Sochi.

As the two presidents looked over a large model of the Olympic grounds layout, Mr. Putin pointed to a boat on the water and said to Mr. Bush, “This is your yacht.”

“Thank you, yes,” Mr. Bush said, laughing.

“My pleasure,” Mr. Putin said.