KUALA LUMPUR, May 3 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has related his experience meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin back in 2005, two years after he stepped down from his first stint as prime minister.
Speaking to TIME magazine, Dr Mahathir recalled how to Putin’s entourage, it was unthinkable that his home stood completely exposed — not even a perimeter wall in sight.
“For [Putin’s] security, to have somebody like me with no fence was unthinkable,” he reportedly said while laughing.
“But we had a four-hour meeting. He was interested in seeing how Malaysia managed from an agro-based country to become industrialised.
“He was going to rebuild Russia. When I talked to him it was about development, increasing trade, basically to be less communistic, to make use of capitalist ideology,” he added.
Dr Mahathir also said that he had tried to deter Putin from visiting him since he was no longer prime minister.
“Actually, I told him, ‘You cannot come to my house; protocol-wise it’s wrong,’ But he insisted,” he recalled.
Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had succeeded him then, and Putin’s visit was on the invitation of then-Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin.
Dr Mahathir also seemed to defend Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine — arguing that it started with the “provocation” of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), which he said should have been abolished following the fall of the Soviet Union.
“Instead, Nato decided to take all the Warsaw Pact countries and join Nato and confront Russia. Before Ukraine can join Nato, Russia took preemptive action,” justified Dr Mahathir.
He also heaped blamed on Europe and the Western world for antagonising Russia.
“I get this feeling that Europe likes to have enemies. If it’s not Russia, it’s the Islamic countries,” he added.
Dr Mahathir also refused to criticise Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for meeting Putin in a bilateral meeting in Vladivostok last year.
“I think we had to sit down with Putin. I would have sat down with him,” he said.
