Vladimir Putin knew that former German Chancellor Merkel has been afraid of dogs since she was bitten by one in her youth, so he made sure during his meetings with her to let his dogs into the room in order to put pressure on him.
Against the background of the bloody war he is waging in Ukraine, little has been revealed from sources in Europe about the Russian president’s actions from which one can learn how cruel and rigid he is. President Putin knew that former German Chancellor Angela Merkel had feared dogs since a traumatic event that occurred as a child so whenever she visited the Kremlin he made sure the dogs were in the room to scare her.
The former chancellor who was bitten as a child by a dog prefers to keep her distance, but Putin actually took advantage of that. “The Russian president loves his dogs and seems to have used them to intimidate Merkel in a meeting they held on the subject of negotiations,” a reliable journalist source said, according to a report in Maariv.
For example, in 2007, Putin arrived in the Russian city of Sochi, along with diplomatic reinforcements for a meeting with Merkel on energy supplies. Later, when “Connie”, the Russian president’s black Labrador dog entered the room, Angela remarked nervously, or perhaps under pressure: “Now the dog will eat the journalists.”
Kremlin critic and journalist Julia Latina said at the time that “the friendly meeting in Sochi between Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and the Labrador Connie dog left me completely confused.” A year earlier, Putin had given Merkel a gift – a small black-and-white dog doll with a short leash. According to an acquaintance. German diplomats claimed they did not know how to interpret the message following the wait.