On May 8, 2004, Vladimir Putin was sworn in as Russian President for the second time.
On May 9, 2004, Chechen President Akhmat Kadyrov, installed by Putin, was killed by an explosive device. In the official gallery in Grozny. While the Russian 'Victory Day' is celebrated.
And on September 1, terrorists take more than 1,100 children and adults hostage at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia. The year 2004 brings unexpected difficulties and setbacks for Vladimir Putin. And it shapes his behavior in the future.
As he begins his second term as president, Putin has made Russia successful again. Rising oil and gas prices have boosted the economy and made Putin's empire an attractive business partner for the West. Western statesmen seek his proximity: Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Silvio Berlusconi, Gerhard Schröder. And Putin now seems to have even the terror in his own country under control, especially since Akhmat Kadyrov is president in Grozny. In the first Chechen war, Kadyrov called for jihad against Russia. In 1999 he switched sides and a year later was appointed head of administration of the Chechen Republic by Putin.
After the assassination attempt on Kadyrov on Victory Day, Putin comforted the murdered man's crying son, Ramzan Kadyrov, in Moscow. Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the attack.
The terrorists in Beslan also want to achieve only one thing with their heinous action: the Russian state power should withdraw from Chechnya.
»As usual in such cases, Putin denies any direct connection between this hostage-taking and his politics. Even at Beslan he thought the enemy was only outside, i.e. in the west. He would have, so to speak, incited the Chechen rebels to attack this school," says Christian Neef, then deputy head of SPIEGEL's foreign department, in the podcast. »And that's why Putin wanted to show some kind of reaction. And so he didn't respond to all the offers of conversation that had been made, but instead had the school stormed by force. A terrible, truly tragic event.”
Vladimir Putin suddenly sees his power being questioned. Internally through terrorism and externally through Russia's declining influence in the post-Soviet space.
On October 28, 2004, Vladimir Putin makes a not entirely correct parade. On Khreschtschatyk, the central boulevard in Kiev.
The occasion is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Kiev from the Nazis. In the stands of honor are the incumbent Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, the incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and Vladimir Putin. Everyone wants Yanukovych to be elected Ukrainian president three days later, hence the big parade, a celebratory, patriotic act for the candidate. With one crucial mistake:
Kiev was only liberated on November 6th. But that date would have been after the election.
With his presence at this early commemoration, Vladimir Putin is personally intervening in the neighboring country's election campaign. But it doesn't help: Yanukovych ultimately loses. And this defeat of his Russian attempt to influence the 'Orange Revolution' changes Putin's entire political agenda.
»Ukraine, that's the big blow for him. And that’s where his foreign policy stance begins to change,” analyzes Christian Neef in the third episode of the special podcast series “Putin’s Rise”. »He announces a special Russian path and speaks very clearly for the first time about heroic national history. Everything that we have today in a very pronounced form was already clearly noticeable back then.«
The West seems to either not notice this change or not take it seriously. Until Russia intervened with military force in the Caucasus War in 2008.
In the third episode of the podcast series "Putin's Rise," Christian Neef reports on the crucial year of 2004. He explains why Putin cannot make decisions alone, but rather has to manage a risky balance of power between different factions in the Kremlin. And it shows the beginnings of the great power fantasies that Vladimir Putin still pursues today.
You can listen to this episode right here:
The foreign podcast Eight Billion appears every Friday on SPIEGEL.de and everywhere there are podcasts. Do you have any suggestions, criticism, topic suggestions or even praise for this show? Then write us an email to eight.milliarden@spiegel.de.