One detail is enough to understand the psychological profile Wladimir Putin. In 2007 he invited the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Sochi. A very important institutional meeting: it was already very much feared, even if the strong woman of the Kremlin was still considered a reliable (if not exactly reassuring) interlocutor for the West, while in Germany she was in power for a few months and nobody would have guessed that she would become the woman who could lead the whole of Europe politically.
A battle of nerves is being waged on the Black Sea, a war to prove who’s in charge. The host, with a past in the KGB He went from obscure bureaucrat to tsar of the new Russia, or the guest he grew up with East Germany but an iron exponent of the CDU? Just to please her and to calm her down immediately, Putin let his own into the room black labrador Koni. Agreeable for as long as you want, but still a big dog who can intimidate anyone. Imagine Merkel, remembered by CNN, literally terrified of dogs ever since she was attacked by one 1995.
Merkel is afraid of Putin’s Labrador: watch the video
A private trauma that Putin, well informed by his former “mumps” colleagues in Moscow’s secret police, was apparently aware of. Koni calmly wanders between the two world champions, then approaches Angela, sniffs her, crouching by her legs. Merkel looks at him intently, she is very tense and cannot avert her eyes, while Vladimir watches the scene with an expression somewhere between Mephistopheles and satisfaction. In a mental chess game, it’s almost the ready move that immediately ends the game. “I didn’t want to scare her,” the Russian president would defend himself years later. Hard to believe given the promises he’s been fooling the world with over the years.
