Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel for scaring her off during their meeting in Sochi in 2007. He told the former head of the German government that he did not want to scare her when he brought Koni, a black labrador, to the meeting. AFP informs about it.
Merkel, whose fear of dogs is widely known, recalled it in her memoir published on Tuesday, accusing Putin of making it a “show of force”.
When they met in Moscow in 2006, Putin gave her a large stuffed dog and remarked that it doesn’t bite. Apparently, he was alluding to the bad experience of a German politician who was attacked by a dog in the 1990s.
“I didn’t know she was afraid of dogs,” the Kremlin chief claimed on Thursday at a press conference in Astana about the 2007 meeting. “.
Putin explained that, on the contrary, he tried to create a pleasant atmosphere for their negotiations. “If ever again – I realize that it is unlikely – you come, under no circumstances will I do it again,” assured the Russian president.
In photos from the negotiations in Sochi, the labrador Koni walks around Merkel, who is sitting tensely on a chair. In one picture, it looks like she even put her head in her lap. Chancellor Merkel looks on with a nervous smile. Merkel wrote in her memoirs that “she could see from the expression on Putin’s face that he was enjoying the situation.”
According to AFP, Putin is known to like dogs and receives them from foreign guests on various occasions. He was given a female horse by Sergej Shoigu, who later became the Minister of Defense.
Source: spravy.pravda.sk
