Rossiiskaya Gazeta No. 216 November 14, 2002 [translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only] WHY WAS THE RUSSIAN PRESIDENT SO ANGRY? By Vitaly TRETYAKOV
While appearing at a Brussels press conference on November 11th upon the conclusion of the EU-Russia summit, Vladimir Putin became angry.
When answering a foreign journalist's question, which I might say had been formulated rather provocatively, Putin launched into a long tirade about the dangers of Islamic terrorism. I don't have to say that this is not a subject that Vladimir Putin likes to talk about. If it comes up in conversation with him, then he answers aggressively, but extremely concisely. However, on this occasion the president gave not only an aggressive answer, but also a very long one. He does this when the answer to the question is crystal clear to him, right down to the last detail. Moreover, it's a matter of being principally clear, i.e. Vladimir Putin is absolutely convinced that he is right. This led to his rather verbose response. The aggression came from the fact that Putin is irritated by openly or intentionally stupid questions though camouflaged as the search for the truth. Putin considers that stupid questions, like stupid answers to important problems, should not come from the mouths of people who form public opinion. And if they are, nevertheless, voiced, then this is not a coincidence. Either they are a provocation, or they are a distortion of the facts, when the person asking the question realises the incorrectness of his position all too well, but is deliberately misinterpreting events.
However, does this mean that it is worth reacting to an individual journalist's question, albeit an intentionally provocative one, so sharply? Evidently, several circumstances played their role here. Putin was not responding to this one particular journalist, but the many numerous reporters in the West and in Russia, too, who have criticised his policy in Chechnya: the Moscow hostage taking crisis was, of course, dreadful, but, firstly, the Russians and Russia as a whole only had themselves to blame, and secondly, they are far worse than the terrorists.
I suggest that Putin was told during his negotiations with European Union leaders: we understand you, you acted correctly when releasing the hostages and, in principle, you don't have any chance of securing a political settlement in Chechnya without neutralising the armed militants. However, we cannot say this in public: we have public opinion, we have a free press and their members see the Chechen terrorists as fighters struggling for a small and proud nation's independence from the imperial yoke of a large and not very good nation.
And what about the fight against international terrorism? Putin evidently asked. Why is America allowed combat it and we're not, the more so since terrorism has crept into our territory? Well, the Americans, Putin was told, are the Americans. And then they act more accurately.
Incidentally, I am reproducing this argument with such certainty, because I have heard it many times from western colleagues, in particular most recently, during a four-day trip to Germany immediately prior to Putin's arrival in Brussels. And I didn't hear it from journalists alone, but from politicians, too.
In a word, Putin utterly honestly and, I think, believing with justification that no compromises whatsoever can be reached with those who threaten Russia's territorial integrity and security through force of arms, answered in Brussels to all those who believe that Russia's integrity and security could be sacrificed for certain higher values of humanism and human rights to triumph.