Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok in the fall of 2012.
In our papers on Saturday and here on this blog, I wrote about Russian President Vladimir Putin, who I believe to be an anti-democratic despot with little concern for respecting the rule of law or upholding universal human rights. Many readers agreed but some did not. Here’s a lightly edited pair of responses which were typical of those who disagreed:
Waiting for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to show up, Russian President “was fidgeting, tapping his foot, and sent verbal daggers at his minions over the delay,” I write. See below (AFP PHOTO/RIA NOVOSTI/POOL/MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV)
OTTAWA – In less than a month, Russian bad boy Vladimir Putin will host Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other world leaders at the G20 summit in Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg.
It’s shaping up to be a heck of a summit, if only because every leader who steps off the plane at St. Petersburg’s drab grey airport will have a giant chip on their shoulder because of their host’s recent behaviour on the world stage.
With Syria and gay rights and fugitive Edward Snowden, Putin has been offside with most of the Western world.
U.S. President Barack Obama just cancelled a one-on-one summit with Putin out of pique over Snowden, a sign of rapidly cooling Russia-U.S. relations.
