Getting Russia Wrong: A Quarter Century of Putin

It started out rather differently than we now sometimes imagine it. When Vladimir Putin took over the Russian presidency from Boris Yeltsin 25 years ago, on New Year’s Eve 1999, he was seen as a man with whom Washington could do business. 

President Bill Clinton lauded Putin’s accession to the presidency as a “democratic transfer of executive power,” which it certainly was not. Clinton administration officials hailed Putin as “one of [Russia’s] leading reformers” who, according to the New York Times, “clearly has an intellectual grasp of democracy.” The “prospects for meaningful reform in Russia,” opined another journalist, “are now excellent.” Administration officials also dismissed worries over Putin’s KGB background as “psychobabble.”