The west has spent 20 years getting Putin wrong, and now it may be too late to get it right

I wonder if the Russian leader is edging past his peak; whether his sense of his country is now less sure

(AFP/Getty Images)

It is hard to imagine this today. But when Russia’s then president, Boris Yeltsin, named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin as his latest prime minister and successor, there were just two main responses, in Russia and abroad.

The first was: who is this non-entity, who looks so timid and inconsequential beside the bear-like Yeltsin. The second, not unreasonable given that Putin was Yeltsin’s fifth acting prime minister in a year, was: all right, so how long is this loser going to last?

The answer to the second question is now partly clear. Putin might have come seemingly out of nowhere, but he was no loser. He has now been at the top of Russian politics, as prime minister or president, for 20 years. His current presidential term takes him to 2024. He is a global figure. In his home country, he is often referred to just by his initials: there is only one VVP.