Putin, Schroeder Smooth Ties and Cement Deals

Despite nagging reminders of Kremlin human rights abuses and this city’s Nazi past, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Friday proclaimed new promise in their relations and a mutual commitment to making Russia part of a secure and prosperous Europe.

A two-day summit between Putin and Schroeder produced the kind of “concrete results” both leaders said they prefer to the bearhugging, sauna-sharing camaraderie of their respective predecessors, Boris N. Yeltsin and Helmut Kohl.

Still, the men hailed their first encounter and their pragmatic approach to improving ties between their countries as the start of a warm personal relationship that ultimately will benefit both countries.

Putin came to Germany with hopes of drawing more investment to Russia, and he left with $2 billion worth of financing pledges for projects involving Moscow’s Gazprom energy empire and four private German energy agencies.

“Germany was and is our leading partner in Europe, as well as in the world,” Putin told a news conference, noting that the deals prove that there has been no rift in Russian-German relations despite changes in both nations’ leadership.

Schroeder, for his part, announced that $500 million in export credit guarantees will become available soon, as the economic delegations meeting on the periphery of the summit managed to resolve a long-standing dispute that had blocked more of such trade insurance after the mid-1998 financial crisis in Russia.

Of paramount importance to Putin has been securing European sympathy for his opposition to a proposed U.S. missile defense system, and Schroeder appeared to side with his guest in warning against any actions that could reignite an arms race.

“In the long term, there can be no peace in Europe without the inclusion of Russia,” Schroeder said, reiterating his appeal that erstwhile adversaries Moscow and Washington take care to preserve the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

The proposed U.S. missile shield, a reinvention of President Reagan’s “Star Wars” project of the 1980s, would require revisions to the ABM treaty, and Moscow has unwaveringly denounced the plan as a threat to arms control.

Instead, Putin suggested to President Clinton during their meeting in Moscow two weeks ago that the two countries cooperate in establishing a center in the Russian capital to monitor missile launches anywhere in the world. Although that proposal met with little enthusiasm from Clinton, Putin said here that “a united Europe” also should take part to share the security benefits of such an early warning system.

Putin’s visit was marred by the controversial arrest in Moscow of magnate Vladimir A. Gusinsky, whose independent media have been sharply critical of the Kremlin for brutality in the war against separatist rebels in the republic of Chechnya. But Putin brushed off suggestions that the arrest and subsequent fraud charges filed against Gusinsky were an attempt to stifle opposition, and claimed that the case was a judicial matter and out of his hands. The president also steadfastly defended Russian military assaults on Chechnya as measures necessary to fight terrorism and secession.

Unsettling reminders of darker days in Germany also made occasional intrusions on the summit. Putin visited a Soviet war memorial honoring 300,000 of his countrymen killed in the 1945 siege of Berlin, and he visited the restored Reichstag, where Soviet soldiers scrawled messages, signatures and profanities after capturing the building that symbolized the Third Reich capital. The graffiti wall has been preserved as a reminder of the Nazi terror and the extreme sacrifices needed to halt it.

On the summit’s sidelines, the German and Russian culture ministers tackled the divisive topic of “trophy art,” the vast haul of paintings, sculptures, documents and church artifacts seized by the Nazis as they ransacked Russian imperial palaces in 1941 and by Soviet troops at the war’s end in pursuit of revenge and compensation. Symbolic returns of some artworks have been made recently, but both sides hope for more significant progress when experts meet in October.

Before Putin left late Friday, he invited Schroeder and his family to visit Moscow around Christmas, and the two leaders announced plans for another summit in April in Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg.