The Russian president, Vladimir Putindenied on Thursday that he had deliberately used his Koni black labrador to intimidate the German chancellor, Angela Merkelin a meeting in 2007 that became a notorious diplomatic incident.
Merkel wrote in her new memoirs Freedom that, knowing that Putin sometimes brought the pet to meetings with foreign guests, he had asked an aide the previous year to ask the Russian president’s team not to bring Koni out in his presence because He was afraid of dogs.
According to her, when they met in Moscow in 2006, Putin respected her request but gave her a large stuffed dog, noting that it did not bite. However, the following year in Sochi, the big dog wandered into the room and approached Merkel while the chancellor, visibly uncomfortable, sat next to Putin in front of photographers and television cameras.
Asked about the incident on Thursday, Putin denied being aware of Merkel’s phobia and said he had later apologized to her.
“Frankly, I already told Merkel, I didn’t know she was afraid of dogs. If I had known, I never would have done it. On the contrary, I wanted to create a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere,” he declared at a press conference.
Russian journalists smiled as Putin apologized again to Merkel and said that, in the unlikely event that he visited her again, he “wouldn’t do it again at all.” Likewise, he added that “I appeal to her again and tell her: Angela please forgive me. “I didn’t want to cause you any distress.”
In her book, the former chancellor described the incident as an ordeal.
“I tried to ignore the dog, although it moved more or less next to me. “I interpreted Putin’s facial expressions as if he was enjoying the situation,” he wrote. “Did you want to see how a person in trouble reacts? Was it a small show of power? I just thought: keep calm, focus on the photographers, it will pass”.
Merkel maintains that this action was an attempt by the Russian president to “send signals” to the world: “Putin showed the public, on another level, how he intended to send signalsif necessary with the help of his black Labrador, Koni, who he frequently had by his side when he received foreign guests,” he says.
“When I finished the meeting, I did not discuss the issue with Putin and limited myself, as I often do, to the rule of the English aristocracy: ‘Never explain, never complain’”writes politics in his memoirs.
The politician, chancellor of Germany between 2005 and 2021 and one of the protagonists of European politics in that period, confesses that The Russian leader already hinted in 2006, almost two decades ago, of his intentions to perpetuate himself. in power.
Specifically, he remembers a moment with Putin in a car to an airport in Siberia in April 2006, after a business forum, when he told him that the Russian Constitution allowed re-election after two terms if the candidate “takes a break.” .
“The message I received from Putin’s few words, that spring day in Siberia, as we headed to an airport, left no doubt: ‘Please note that I continuealthough next year after two terms I will leave office to a successor, as the Constitution wants. I will return, it will be just a pause‘”, Merkel understood from her talk with the Russian president (in 2008 his right-hand man would succeed him, Dmitri Medvédevuntil 2012, when he returned to power).
In addition, The German recalls that Putin used to consider the end of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century” and that already in those years he lamented the United States defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.
(With information from Reuters)
