BERLIN — He was skinny in his trim, dark suit, an almost lupine figure, nervous and unexpectedly youthful for a president of
Russia. Taking the lectern beneath the dome of the restored Reichstag,
Vladimir V. Putin soon shifted to German, with a fluency that startled the German lawmakers and a pro-West message that reassured them. The Cold War seemed over.
It was 2001, just weeks after
the Sept. 11 attacks, and Mr. Putin pledged solidarity with America while also sketching a vision of Russia’s European destiny. He was the first Russian leader to address the German Parliament, and lawmakers jumped to their feet, applauding, as many deputies marveled that he could speak their language so well.
Except for
Angela Merkel, then the relatively untested leader of the opposition. She joined the standing ovation but turned to say something to a lawmaker who had grown up in the formerly Communist East, as she had. She knew how Mr. Putin’s German had gotten so good.
“Thanks to the Stasi,” Ms. Merkel said, a reference to the East German secret police Mr. Putin had worked alongside when he was a young K.G.B. officer in Dresden.
Fast-forward more than 15 years, to a world where the Cold War seems resurgent, which has seen a procession of American and European leaders try and fail to engage Russia, and only Ms. Merkel and Mr. Putin remain. Their relationship, and rivalry, is a microcosm of the sharply divergent visions clashing in Europe and beyond, a divide made more consequential by the uncertainty over President Trump’s policy toward Russia and whether he will redefine the traditional alliances of American foreign policy.
Ms. Merkel, 62, is now the undisputed leader of Europe, weary but resolute, the stolid defender of an embattled European Union and of Western liberal values.
Mr. Putin, 64, is now the equivalent of a modern Russian czar, who wants to fracture Europe and the liberal Western order. He has outlasted George W. Bush and Barack Obama in America, and Tony Blair, David Cameron, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy in Europe. His state-sponsored hacking teams are accused of helping to derail Hillary Clinton’s predicted ride to the White House.
Now Europe’s fate is on the line, with coming elections in the Netherlands, France, possibly Italy and in
Germany, where Ms. Merkel is seeking a fourth term as chancellor. If not on any ballot, Mr. Putin is a shadow figure in every race, inspiring angry European populists who embrace his nationalistic ethos, while Russia is also suspected of meddling through cyberhacking and spreading disinformation. Toppling Ms. Merkel would mean Mr. Putin had bested his last rival.
“Chancellor Merkel is the most steadfast custodian of the concept of the liberal West going back 70 years,” said Strobe Talbott, who was President Bill Clinton’s leading adviser on Russia, “and that makes her Putin’s No. 1 target.”
The new geopolitical dynamics will be on display on Tuesday, when Ms. Merkel visits the White House for her first meeting with Mr. Trump. Mr. Putin, in turn, on Thursday invited the German chancellor to visit Moscow in the near future. It is a poker game featuring two inscrutable players with a long history — and a new, inscrutable third participant.
Back in 2000,
as the West struggled to size up the new Russian leader, the puzzlement was distilled in a panel question at the elite talkfest at Davos, Switzerland: “Who is Mr. Putin?” Years later, Mr. Putin remains an enigma, sometimes depicted as a cartoonish, shirtless macho man, or drawn as a master political strategist, a Slavic Machiavelli.
But equally apt is this question: “Who is Ms. Merkel?” Pragmatic, nonideological and cautious, Ms. Merkel, too, remains largely unknowable. Her status as Germany’s “Mutti,” or “Mother,” is mostly a reflection of the biases of the country’s male-dominated media and political class, still unsure how to categorize a powerful woman.
Between them, there have been dozens of meetings and scores of telephone calls over the years, if never a breakthrough moment nor a partnership of the sort that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain once forged with the Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev. If that pair helped the world out of the Cold War, Mr. Putin and Ms. Merkel’s relationship often seems trapped in it, shaped by their very different experiences in East Germany.
Never a friend nor an open foe, Ms. Merkel has always sought to nudge Mr. Putin and Russia toward a relationship rooted in rules rather than emotion, a comity built on clearly defined common interests, not personal chemistry. Mr. Putin, in turn, has longed for a transactional leader in Europe, someone who would strike a grand bargain and guarantee Russia a fixed, even privileged, place at the decision-making table.
Before Ms. Merkel took power, Mr. Putin had that rapport with her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder. Now it is one of Mr. Schröder’s heirs,
Martin Schulz, leading the center-left Social Democrats, who poses the biggest challenge to Ms. Merkel. Having the Social Democrats back in power, with their warmer embrace of Russia, would be a boon to Mr. Putin — just as he is hoping for friendlier leadership in France, and with Mr. Trump in the United States.
The Merkel-Putin relationship is defined by wariness, mutual suspicion, if also mutual respect. Yet along the way, there have been missed opportunities and misjudgments, which are culminating now in a moment of reckoning, as Ms. Merkel tries for another term — and Mr. Putin’s Russia is accused of working to thwart her.
