:: Putin Weighs War, U.S. And 2012

NOVO-OGARYOVO, Moscow Region Prime Minister Vladimir Putin passed on bread and hardly touched his wine Friday as he gave a passionate lecture on World War II and spoke about the incumbent U.S. president during a sweeping lunchtime discussion with Western experts on Russia.

The 2 1/2-hour meal with the Valdai Club of leading Western reporters and scholars specializing in Russia most of it behind closed doors was a routine annual meeting seeking to give them firsthand knowledge of Moscow’s thinking on key local and international issues. Unlike the previous two encounters, which revolved largely around the Georgian war and Putin’s plans to step down as president, this rendezvous covered a greater variety of topics, the participants said.

Asked about U.S.-Russian ties, Putin said there hadn’t been much progress since a July summit in Moscow, which he attributed to President Barack Obama’s preoccupation with health care reform, said Angela Stent, head of the Russia and Eurasia department at Georgetown University.

“If he’s able to do that, then he will be able to move forward,” she recalled Putin as saying about Obama. “His popularity will rise and he will be able to deal more with Russia.”

In response to another question, Putin reiterated that Russia would continue efforts to diversify its economy away from a reliance on oil and gas exports, despite the economic crisis.

Putin also restated his intention to sit down with President Dmitry Medvedev to decide on their presidential ambitions in the next election, in 2012, said Nikolai Zlobin, director of Russian and Asian programs at the World Security Institute, a think tank in Washington.

Zlobin quoted Putin as saying the two leaders would take into account the political and economic conditions, including the popularity of United Russia, the ruling party chaired by Putin.

The prime minister did not directly answer whether he or Medvedev was the boss in Russia, but he repeated that he was comfortable with the amount of power bestowed on him as head of the government, Zlobin said.

Putin, who had spoken at length about the economy and politics, livened up when Zlobin asked him the two questions about his relations with Medvedev.

On his way out of the meeting, Putin shook hands with Zlobin, despite hurrying to have a telephone conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan.

Valdai Club members are scheduled to meet Medvedev on Tuesday, a day after his 44th birthday.

Putin joked at times, including when Zlobin began asking his questions, which he framed as “requests” to dispel stereotypes. After the word “requests,” Putin jumped in. “Nikolai, we are tight on money.”

Fielding a question about Russia’s gas trade, Putin said Turkey could replace Ukraine as the main transit route for its westbound gas, said Alexander Rahr, a Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Rahr, an author of a biography of Putin, noted that Putin ignored his bread and only tasted the main course.

Putin took no more than a couple sips of his white wine, and waiters didn’t pour him any red, he said.

Another participant noted that Putin was keen for Russia to engage in closer cooperation with Europe in terms of trade in military equipment.

“It seemed interesting to me that he said for the first time that Russia wasn’t afraid of cooperating with the West in the area of defense industry and manufacture of military systems,” said Oksana Antonenko, program director for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank in London. “It’s the West that’s afraid of it.”

She speculated that Russia’s intention to buy a French frigate was an effort to start such interaction.

Colonel General Nikolai Makarov, chief of the Armed Forces’ General Staff, said last month that the military planned to buy a Mistral-class helicopter carrier and then jointly produce three or four additional carriers with France in Russian shipyards. The contract could be signed before the year’s end, he said. (Related story, Page 5).

Antonenko said Russia could potentially sell its military cargo planes to the West.

Opening the meeting, Putin noted that the crisis hadn’t affected his 52 visitors’ wellbeing.

“Everyone looks nourished and well-dressed,” Putin commented to a polite laughter.

He fielded the first question from former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller, which set him off talking passionately about the Soviet and Western politics leading up to World War II an issue that is still divisive for Russia and Poland.

He raised his voice sharply when stressing that the Soviet Union was left alone to face Hitler’s Germany.

“That’s why our Brest fortress fought to the last fighter,” Putin said loudly, referring to a famous battle in the summer of 1941. “Only a few people were captured and that’s because they were unconscious. All the others fell.”

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