「冷徹」「情勢にうとい」「好き」　米歴代大統領が見たプーチン氏

【パリＡＦＰ＝時事】米国のジョー・バイデン大統領は、ロシアのウラジーミル・プーチン大統領を「殺人者」だと考えるかとの問いに「そう考える」と答え、「代償を支払う」ことになるだろうとの認識を示した。バイデン大統領の前任者らはプーチン大統領についてどのように見ていたか、以下にまとめた。（写真はロシア・ソチを訪れたウラジーミル・プーチン大統領と米国のジョージ・W・ブッシュ元大統領）
　
■クリントン元大統領：「冷徹」「タフ」
　ビル・クリントン元米大統領は、１９９９年に大統領代行に就任したプーチン氏に祝いの電話をかけた後、「ロシアを一つにまとめる上で十分なタフさを備えている」と思ったと語った。
　プーチン氏の前任のボリス・エリツィン氏と良好な関係を築いていたクリントン氏は、プーチン氏は冷徹と感じた一方で、「エリツィン氏は、ロシアの不安定な政治、経済情勢のかじ取りを、自分よりも巧みに進めていける技術と能力を持ち合わせた後継者を選んだ」と、自伝の中でつづっている。

■ブッシュ大統領：「冷たいやつ」「情勢にうとい」
　ジョージ・Ｗ・ブッシュ氏は大統領就任前に私的な場で、プーチン氏を「冷たいやつ」と呼んだとされる。だが２００１年にスロベニアで初対面した際、プーチン氏に好印象を抱き、「魂に触れる」ためにじっと目を見つめたと明かした話は有名。「自国のため、極めて献身的になれる人物」だと感じたという。
　しかし２００６年、両氏の関係は悪化。ブッシュ氏は当時デンマーク首相に対し、プーチン氏について「情勢にうとい。事実を誤認した中学生と議論しているような気になる」と話している。

■オバマ元大統領：冷え込んだ関係
　米ロ関係はバラク・オバマ政権時代に、冷戦以来の冷え込みを見せた。オバマ氏はプーチン氏に対する懐疑的な姿勢を隠そうともしなかった。
　２０１３年には報道陣を前に「プーチン氏とは、個人的に仲が悪いわけではない」と話したオバマ氏。「われわれは話せばいつも率直で、単刀直入で…建設的だ。メディアがボディーランゲージに注目したがるのは知っている。彼はどこかだらりとしたような、教室の後ろで退屈そうにしている子どものような感じがある…」とコメントした。

■トランプ前大統領：「私はプーチン氏が好きだ」
　ドナルド・トランプ前大統領は、プーチン氏への称賛をほぼ全くと言っていいほど隠そうとしなかった。昨年にはジャーナリストのボブ・ウッドワード氏に対し「私はプーチン氏が好きだし、彼も私が好きだ」と明言。「よりタフで抜け目のない」指導者らの方が、自分と「よりうまが合う」と語っていた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/03/23-14:09）

After US President Joe Biden brands Vladimir Putin a killer who will pay the price for interfering in US elections, we look at what his predecessors thought of the Russian president.
- Clinton: Cold and tough -
US president Bill Clinton said he hung up after congratulating Putin on becoming acting Russian president in 1999 thinking he was tough enough to hold Russia together.
Clinton, who had a warm rapport with Putin's mentor Boris Yeltsin, found him cold but wrote in his memoirs that Yeltsin had picked a successor who had the skills and capacity... to manage Russia's turbulent political and economic life better than (the ailing) Yeltsin now could.
- Bush: Bromance to almost blows -
George W. Bush privately called Putin one cold dude before he was elected. But he was charmed at their first meeting in Slovenia in 2001, famously saying he looked him in the eye to get a sense of his soul.
He's a man deeply committed to his country, he added.
The deeply religious Bush was reportedly touched by a story Putin told him about how a cross his mother gave him was the only thing to survive a fire at his dacha (country house).
His vice-president Dick Cheney, however, was unmoved saying when he saw Putin, I think KGB, KGB, KGB, referring to the Soviet secret service to which the Russian president once belonged.
But the relationship soured on both sides with Bush telling the Danish premier in 2006 that Putin was not well-informed. It's like arguing with an eighth-grader with his facts wrong.
Putin said he would not be lectured on democracy. We would not want to have a democracy like in Iraq, he told reporters during a joint press conference with the US leader.
Bush also told British prime minister Tony Blair that he nearly lost his cool during a meeting with Putin, saying At one point the interpreter made me so mad that I nearly reached over the table and slapped the hell out of the guy. He had a mocking tone, making accusations about America.
When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 Bush confronted Putin directly at the Beijing Olympics, he wrote in his memoirs.
He told him he had warned him that the Georgian president was hot-blooded.
I'm hot-blooded too, Putin replied.
No, Vladimir, Bush retorted. You're cold-blooded.
- Obama: Feel the chill -
Relations between the US and Russia became their chilliest since the Cold War under America's first black president.
Obama didn't try to hide his suspicion of the Russian leader. I don't have a bad personal relationship with Putin, he told reporters in 2013.
When we have conversations they're candid, they're blunt... and constructive. I know the press likes to focus on body language and he's got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom...
Recalling Bush's famous phrase, his and Obama's secretary of defence Robert M. Gates wrote in his memoir that when he first looked into Putin's eyes in 2007 just as I expected I had seen a stone-cold killer.
- Trump: 'I like Putin' -
Donald Trump made so little effort to disguise his admiration for the Russian leader that many in Washington wondered if he had been compromised by the Kremlin spy agencies Putin once led.
I like Putin, he likes me, Trump insisted last year, telling the journalist Bob Woodward the tougher and meaner strongmen leaders were, the better I get along with them.
Trump said after a 2018 summit that he was more inclined to believe Putin than the FBI over Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be, he added.