In August 1999, Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. At the transition from 1999 to 2000, he succeeded the ailing President Boris Yeltsin. Already upon taking office, Putin stated that Russia was and will remain a great power. In Europe, he was seen more as a reformer who should reorganize the chaotic Russia of the wild nineties.
In June 2001, US President George W. Bush called Putin "reliable and direct", following their summit meeting. Bush, the head of state of NATO's leading power, said he was "looking into his soul."
In September 2001, during a speech in the Bundestag, Vladimir Putin offered Europe a security partnership with Russia. He questioned the role of the USA as the leading Western power. The head of the Kremlin did not rule out Russia's possible membership in NATO and the European Union.
At that time, the European Union and Russia are agreeing on various funding programs and cooperation. It strives for "strategic partnership". NATO opens an office in Moscow. Russia establishes a representative office at NATO in Brussels. The NATO-Russia Special Council discusses strategic issues, as well as the imminent voluntary accession of Central and Eastern European countries to the Alliance.
As one of the main suppliers of oil and gas to the EU, Russia does well with Europe. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder calls Putin a "flawless democrat", despite the already known suppression of the opposition and media freedom in Russia. After his mandate, Schroeder was given lucrative positions in state-owned Russian energy companies.
Putin's turn
In 2006, at the Munich Security Conference, Vladimir Putin initiated the change. He complained that the West does not accept Russia as a great power. NATO described the expansion as a violation of its word. Promises by NATO countries not to move towards Russia's border are being ignored, he said. However, in 1997, Russia agreed to enlargement in an agreement with NATO.
Disarmament agreements are being terminated. Russia strongly criticizes the planned US anti-missile defense. Vladimir Putin is angry after Ukraine and Georgia were promised at a NATO summit in April 2008 that they would join the Western alliance.
In August 2008, Putin demonstrated his military might to Europeans. It intervenes in the conflict in Georgia and after a short war puts parts of South Ossetia and Abkhazia under Russian control.
In 2013, the European Commission is still talking about creating a common "economic and human space" from Lisbon to Vladivostok with Putin's Russia - as a long-term vision.
Putin's wars
After the expulsion of the Porur president from Ukraine in the spring of 2014 and the democratic revolution on the Maidan, Russian President Putin attacks Ukraine. He annexes the Crimean peninsula in violation of international law and places pro-Russian separatists in parts of eastern Ukraine under his control. The West reacts with the first sanctions and tries to mediate. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande mediated the Minsk Agreement, which was supposed to lead to peace. That never happened, but it "gave Ukraine time to strengthen," as Chancellor Merkel later said.
Relations quickly deteriorated, but the import of Russian energy products continued. In the perception of the EU, Putin increasingly turned into an autocratic ruler. In 2021, the European Union spoke of a "negative spiral" in mutual relations.
In March 2022, shortly after a major attack by Russian troops on Ukraine, US President Joe Biden saw Putin as a ruthless "dictator, war criminal, murderer".
Since then, NATO has viewed Putin's Russia as the "greatest threat to peace in Europe", the new old enemy in the East. The EU has imposed comprehensive sanctions on Russia and is trying to cut itself off from oil and gas supplies as soon as possible. Even two years after the start of the war, she still hasn't completely succeeded. Russian liquefied gas continues to arrive in Europe. Trade with Russia is decreasing, but many European companies still do business in Russia. The food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries are not affected by the sanctions.
Today, 25 years after Putin took office, NATO is preparing for a new arms race. Countering Russian aggression is now the main task of the Alliance.
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