Twenty Years of Putin Playing the West in 3 Minutes, NYT Opinion

Vladimir Putin, especially these days, is widely reviled. To some hes a war criminal, to others hes a dictator, and to many hes simply a very bad man. But it wasnt always this way. We trawled through video footage from 20 years of international summits, speeches and news conferences and discovered a man who once basked in high regard: the one who went fishing and dancing with George W. Bush, who fell into warm embraces with Tony Blair and whose jokes had NATOs leaders rolling on the floor with laughter. As the Opinion Video above starkly reveals, Western leaders once considered Vladimir Putin not just an ally, but also, apparently, a friend. Even if they were simply giving him the benefit of the doubt for political purposes, they were taking a naïve gamble of historic proportions: Be nice to Putin, and maybe he would be nice back. Its true that this brand of personal diplomacy scored some significant security victories. Arms control treaties were signed, and Putin