Putin invites top critic to Kremlin

14 Sep 2012, 2:37 am   -   Source: AAP

A journalist who wrote a hugely critical biography of Vladimir Putin has spoken of her "very strange" Kremlin meeting with the Russian president.

Vladimir Putin invited a journalist who wrote a hugely critical biography of the Russian president to a "very strange" Kremlin meeting after she was fired from her editorial job, she says.

Masha Gessen, well known in the West for her book on Putin The Man Without a Face, said the Russian leader appeared clueless about her anti-Kremlin views and spoke frankly about his publicity stunts involving animals.

Gessen said Putin personally invited her to the Kremlin last week after she was fired by the publisher from her post as editor of Vokrug Sveta, a popular science magazine, because she refused to send a reporter to cover his now notorious "birdman" stunt with Siberian Cranes.

Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Russian news agencies that the meeting had taken place and said Gessen had largely reported its content accurately "with the exception of a number of insignificant faults".

At the private meeting with her and magazine publisher Sergei Vasilyev, Putin suggested that Gessen should be re-hired and expounded on his interest in animals, confirming that many of his highly-publicised stunts are staged, she said.

"Yes, I know the (snow) leopard was caught in advance," Gessen quoted Putin as saying in her article about the meeting in the Bolshoi Gorod weekly. "With the urns... of course they were planted in advance!"

Last year Putin tagged and released a rare snow leopard, which was badly harmed by the long wait in the cage, according to environmentalists. He also pulled out two urns in a Black Sea dive, which state television presented as an unexpected discovery of ancient treasure.

"I think they assumed that the meeting was off the record, but nobody told me this," Gessen said on the Dozhd television channel Thursday, calling the encounter "very strange".

Vokrug Sveta is a general interest monthly that focuses on history and science. Gessen became its editor in January. In August the magazine partnered up with Russian Geographical Society, an establishment Putin chairs that helps organise some of his expeditions.

"Putin wants to own a vast number of things," Gessen said explaining Putin's summons. "He feels that he owns the magazine, and suddenly there was a problem in his household."

The Man Without a Face chronicles Putin's rise to power, starting from his childhood and has been printed in several languages.

It levels a number of allegations, including theft by Putin of millions of dollars while he worked in Saint Petersburg in the 1990s, and involvement of security services loyal to him in various crimes and terror attacks.

She said she believed Putin did not know about her book or her highly critical commentary on current events, which includes a weekly column in the New York Times.

"I have a feeling that he did not know who I am," she said.

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