Getty ImagesI will never forget New Year’s Eve 1999.
I was working as a producer in the Moscow bureau of the BBC. Suddenly breaking news came: Russian President Boris Yeltsin has resigned.
His decision to resign surprised everyone in Moscow, including the British press corps. There was no reporter in the office when the news broke. This meant that I had to step up to write and broadcast the BBC’s first dispatch.
“Boris Yeltsin always said he would see out his full term in office,” I wrote. “Today he told the Russians he’s changed his mind.”
That was the beginning of my career as a reporter.
and the launch of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s leader.
Following Yeltsin’s resignation, Prime Minister Putin became acting president, according to the Russian constitution. Three months later, he won the election.
Upon leaving the Kremlin, Yeltsin’s parting instruction to Putin was: “Take care of Russia!”
Getty ImagesI find myself recalling Yeltsin’s words more and more, the closer Russia’s war on Ukraine gets to three years.
This is because President Putin’s all-out invasion of Ukraine has had disastrous results.
Mainly for Ukraine, which has seen widespread destruction and death in its cities. About 20 percent of its territory has been occupied and 10 million of its citizens have been displaced.
But also for Russia:
I’ve been reporting on Putin since he came to power a quarter of a century ago.
Who would have thought on December 31, 1999 that Russia’s new leader would still be in power two and a half decades later. Or that today Russia would be fighting a war against Ukraine and competing with the West?
ReutersI often wonder if the course of history would have been very different if Yeltsin had chosen someone else to succeed him. The question is certainly academic. History is full of ifs and buts and maybes.
One thing I can say for sure: In twenty-five years I’ve seen different Putins.
And I’m not alone.
Former NATO chief Lord Robertson told me in 2023 that “the Putin I met, did good business with, set up the NATO Russia Council with is very different from the almost megalomaniac he is today.” “
“The man who stood with me in May 2002, right next to me, and said that Ukraine is a sovereign and sovereign nation-state that will make its own security decisions, is now the man who says that [Ukraine] Not a nation state.
“I think Vladimir Putin is very thin-skinned and has great ambitions for his country. The Soviet Union was recognized as the world’s second superpower. Russia cannot make any claims in that direction. “The ego.”
That’s one possible explanation for the change we’ve seen in Putin: His burning ambitions to “make Russia great again” (and what many see as Moscow’s defeat in the Cold War) have made Russia put him on an inevitable collision course. With its neighbors – and the West.
The Kremlin has a different explanation.
From the speeches he delivers, from his comments, Putin seems driven by resentment, by a pervasive sense that Russia has been lied to and disrespected for years, by concerns about its security. has been rejected by the West.
But does Putin himself believe he has fulfilled Yeltsin’s plea to “take care of Russia”?
I recently had the opportunity to find out.
More than four hours into his long press conference at the end of the year, Putin invited me to ask a question.
“Boris Yeltsin told you to take care of Russia,” I reminded the president. “But what about your so-called ‘special military operation’, Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region, sanctions, significant losses in inflation. Do you think you’ve taken care of your country? “
“Yes,” replied President Putin. “And I just haven’t taken care of it. We’ve stepped back from the edge of the abyss.”
He portrayed Yeltsin’s Russia as a country that was losing its sovereignty. He accused the West of using Russia for its own purposes and giving Yeltsin a “patronizing pat” on the shoulder. But he, Putin, was “doing everything”, he said, “to ensure that Russia is an independent sovereign state”.
Presenting himself as a defender of Russian sovereignty: is this the ideology with which he is trying to justify the war in Ukraine? Or does Putin really believe it is on modern Russian history?
I’m still not sure. Not yet. But I think it’s an important question.
The answer may well affect how the war ends — and Russia’s future direction.