On a bright autumn day in the woods outside the capital, Russia can be a profoundly appealing place. In the company of an accessible, articulate President — and of his talented Italian chef — it can seem close to heaven.
One of the more instructive traditions founded during President Putin’s six years in power is that of his long annual meetings with a group of foreign journalists and experts, including The Times’s Michael Binyon, known as the Valdai Discussion Group. Disguised as informal seminars on Russia and the world, they have become bravura performances by a leader whose undisputed power and enduring popularity Tony Blair must envy. At this year’s gathering, dining with his guests on baked sea bass and octopus carpaccio, Mr Putin had even more to crow about than usual.
Less than two years after Ukraine’s so-called Orange Revolution appeared to have marked that country’s permanent defection to the West, Mr Putin was able to speak of a “huge step forward” in his relations with Kiev, based on a new five-year gas supply deal concluded almost entirely on his terms. He hailed Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian President, as a “serious politician” for agreeing to share power with a pro-Russian Prime Minister; promised to funnel the proceeds of Russia’s oil and gas boom into diversification of both its economy and its own energy supply; and finessed the question of Russia’s tolerance for Iranian nuclear development by leaving open the possibility of backing UN sanctions should Tehran continue its enrichment programme.
Most significantly for the revived science of kremlinology, Mr Putin stated unequivocally that he would not allow the constitution to be changed to let him run for a third term. “If I say that everyone is equal under the law,” he noted, “I don’t have the right to make an exception for myself.” Yet if the rule of law had even begun to take hold in Russia, the country would now be witnessing a massive, sustained onslaught on corruption at every level of business and government, in the form of police sweeps, trials, jail terms, public education initiatives — and purges of the judiciary and police themselves.
It is not happening. Instead, an anti-corruption drive announced three years ago has yielded only token arrests and sentences. More worryingly, even though Mr Putin himself devoted this year’s state-of-the-nation address to the theme, his response at the weekend to questions about potential conflicts of interest for appointees whom he has placed at the top of leading state-owned energy assets was glib in the extreme: “What is the concern?” he asked. The concern is that by squeezing most of the life out of the relatively free press he inherited, he has cocooned himself in praise and cannot know if his own reforms are working. The ultimate test of power is to open yourself to boundless criticism. Formidable as he is, Mr Putin has yet to pass that test.