Bush meets Putin on troubled ground

MOSCOW - Russians have a penchant for a good military parade, and Monday's show of might on the 60^th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, was Vladimir Putin’s day to show off for President Bush and a host of foreign dignitaries.

Putin, Bush and dozens of other leaders watched thousands of soldiers parade across Red Square — fanfare once reserved for Communist Party bosses.

But away from the public ceremonies, in one-on-one talks, Bush has encountered a Russian leader with more on his mind than a military jubilee.

A lot has changed since their first meeting in 2001, when Bush said he gazed into Putin’s soul and proclaimed his counterpart, a former KGB officer, “very straightforward and trustworthy.”

In his five years in office, Putin has abolished most direct elections, muzzled the media and filled his staff with KGB cronies. The country’s biggest oil producer was effectively nationalized at the hands of tax police and courts taking their cues from the Kremlin.

Putin’s backslide on democracy has drawn widespread international criticism, including rebukes from the Bush administration. The Russian leader has shrugged off disapproval from abroad, but he can’t afford to ignore the impact at home.

Bigger bureaucracy
With three years until the end of his second and final term, Putin’s policies, which he defends as vital to preventing the disintegration of the state, are taking their toll.

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By concentrating so much power in the Kremlin, U.S. and Russian officials say Putin has made a potentially fatal mistake. Hard-liners who control access to the president are feeding him a limited diet of analysis, thus isolating him from the growing problems of his presidency.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stressed that Putin is aware of the problems. In an April 25 national address, he singled out corruption, overzealous tax authorities and, to the surprise of many, a lack of an independent media as impediments to Russia’s economic and social progress.

But the president’s ability to recognize the need for change and effect it is slowed by a bureaucracy of his own making, much of it cut from the cloth of the KGB.

Charles Ryan, a leading American investment banker, says he frequently finds himself chasing after “Kremlin permission slips” to get deals done with Putin’s “unwieldy and, quite frankly, unprofessional bureaucracy.”

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The president’s annual address was once watched closely by investors and bureaucrats alike, looking for direction from the Kremlin. But this year businessmen said they had heard it all before. Putin’s words, which should have buoyed wary investors, barely caused a blip on trading screens.

And by all accounts, bureaucrats — which Ryan notes have doubled to 1.2 million during Putin’s five-year-rule — tune out when Putin talks about corruption.

“The point is you could hardly find a bureaucrat in the government which doesn't have business of his own,” said Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire businessman and politician. “It’s very nice to hear about fighting corruption, but nobody’s doing it.”

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