Angela Merkel’s 736-page memoir, Freiheit (Freedom), will be published next week. In this long book, she refers to a 2007 meeting with Vladimir Putin at Sochi, the Black Sea resort.
At the time Putin owned a large, lumbering black labrador, Konni, which he allowed to join them during the meeting. He ‘allowed’ (encouraged) his dog to enter the room where they were sitting by the fireplace. There is a picture of Vladimir Putin smiling as his dog enters and of Angela Merkel looking apprehensive because at the time it was well-known that the former Chancellor of Germany had developed a fear of dogs (cynophobia) after being bitten by one in 1995. The incident apparently occurred during a walk. She wasn’t severely injured but as might be expected it left her with a lasting wariness around dogs and arguably a long-lasting fear.
On a personal note I can completely empathise. I was bitten by a dog about 12 years ago. The dog was one of three on leads with a woman. I was walking by them. A small black terrier without any provocation lurched up and bit my leg breaking the skin and ruining my trousers. It could have been nasty. Since then, I have had a wariness around dogs due to an underlying fear of being bitten.
Returning to Angela Merkel’s meeting, her aversion to dogs became well known in international diplomatic circles. Vladimir Putin must have known about it. If he was being genuinely sympathetic and nice as he claims he would have taken steps to make sure that Konni did not enter the meeting room. He did the exact opposite which indicated to the journalists reporting on this at the time that Putin had deliberately facilitated it in order to unsettle Merkel and gain a psychological advantage.
Putin’s game playing adds weight to the argument that this was a deliberate act. The meeting was carefully orchestrated and it is implausible to believe that allowing Konni to enter the room was an accident or an act of niceness on behalf of Putin. Quite the opposite actually.
Konni actually approached Merkel as seen in the photo on this page. She came right up to Merkel. This wouldn’t have happened without Putin’s knowledge (that she would approach) and his tacit approval. It was engineered by him I would strongly suggest. He wanted to exploit a vulnerability.
Putin has a reputation for psychological gamesmanship in diplomatic situations. He wanted to be dominant by unsettling her. And this episode fits in with a pattern of symbolic gestures attributed to Putin’s diplomatic style.
Vladimir Putin is well known for playing mind games and if you like calling black is white. He has a long-standing reputation for the psychological tactics and manipulating narratives to suit his objectives. His leadership style often includes leveraging personal dynamics, gestures and symbols to unsettle or assert dominance over others particularly in high-stakes diplomatic interactions.
For example, he has consistently downplayed or outright denied involvement in controversial actions such as Russian interference in foreign affairs or the poisoning of dissidents despite significant evidence to the contrary. He has consistently stated that the West through NATO caused his invasion of Ukraine. He blames the West for it not his desire to expand Russia. And he consistently said that Ukrainians are Nazis when he himself is behaving like Hitler.
Given Putin’s well-known behavioural traits and character, it is very difficult to take his claim that Konni entering the meeting room was an accident or an act of niceness. It’s impossible in fact to believe that. Many analysts at the time view the episode is a microcosm of Putin’s broader strategy which was using subtle provocations to test his counterparts’ response while maintaining plausible deniability.
Everything he does is about undermining his enemies or other people in power to give himself an advantage. I would argue he does this instinctively and sees nothing wrong in it. He sees nothing wrong in lying all the time. He probably believes his lies.
As one might expect Angela Merkel dealt with the incident very well and kept calm. In her memoir she claims that Putin’s attempt to unsettle her through a fear of dogs was a childish act. She writes that Putin was “on his guard to avoid being treated badly and always ready to dish it out, including power games with dogs and making others wait for him”. She adds in her book that, “You could find all this childish, reprehensible, you could shake your head at it. But it didn’t take Russia off the map.”
At the time she was very angry about Putin’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 when Putin ignored major issues such as the unresolved conflicts on his doorstep in Moldova and Georgia but preferred to criticise the West and NATO when warning of “new dividing lines and walls”. As I said, Putin is known to be very selective in his narratives. He likes to ignore the things that paint him and his cabal in a bad light.
And there are many many things which paint him in a bad light such as the forced extradition of thousands of children into Russia from Ukraine to indoctrinate them. This has resulted in the ICC issuing an international arrest warrant against Putin for war crimes.
Moving briefly forward to the present day; Merkel writes in her book that she believes that Donald Trump is captivated by politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits. That’s why Donald Trump likes Vladimir Putin. We will see what happens when he becomes the next president of United States and how he deals with Vladimir Putin and his Ukraine war which he has promised he will stop in one day!
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