Putin Defends His 'Democracy'

As president of Russia, Vladimir Putin is the proud and gracious host to more than 50 world leaders who are gathered in Moscow to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Putin has twice been elected president of Russia, but is he a dictator or a democrat? Controversy has swirled about him since he became president five years ago.

At the beginning, he was a slum kid from Leningrad who had a dream. He wanted to be an agent of the sinister KGB, and improbably, he did it. He was smart, ambitious, self-disciplined and lucky. Boris Yeltsin plucked him out of virtual anonymity from a local post in Leningrad, and eventually astonished Russia by anointing Putin president.

This past week, Putin invited to come to Moscow for a rare, unrestricted interview.

The president has been studying English for five years now, but he preferred to do our seated interview in Russian. Putin remains something of an enigma, so Wallace showed him some old pictures, hoping he would open up about them. He did.

"You were a very serious, young man," says Wallace, showing Putin a photo of when he was around 14.

"Not always," says Putin.

"Oh," says Wallace. "A bad boy from time to time?"

"We lived in a small room, all three of us, in a communal apartment in Leningrad with no private facilities," says Putin. "We didn't even have our own bath or shower. My parents worked a lot, so I spent lots of time in the streets with other teenagers."

Putin and his wife, Ludmilla, have been married for 21 years. Their two daughters, Katya and Masha, are 19 and 20 now, but the Kremlin does not release current pictures of them for security reasons.

"You didn't want a boy?" asks Wallace.

"I believe that everything is right which God has given us," says Putin.

Is he religious?

"I believe that every person must have some faith within his heart, and this is what is especially important -- your inner world, the condition of your soul," says Putin.

"Is that what brought you and George W. Bush together at the beginning," asks Wallace. "Your feeling about some spirit?"

"Probably so," says Putin. "That mutual feeling appeared during our first meeting."

"When he [Mr. Bush] looked into your eyes and saw your soul. What about you?" asks Wallace. "Did you see his?"

"He impressed me as a reliable person," says Putin, who adds that he still feels that way. "You know that we have different views on some things, but my first impression was correct. He is a truly reliable person who does what he says he will do." Putin, however, has disagreed with Mr. Bush about his decision to go into Iraq. "I thought that was a mistake and told him so," says Putin. "But he is the president of the United States, and he's the one who makes the decision."

In Bush's defense, Putin said everyone believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, Putin still thinks the Iraq war may have been Mr. Bush's biggest blunder.

"Democracy cannot be exported to some other place. This must be a product of internal domestic development in a society," says Putin. "But if the U.S. were to leave and abandon Iraq without establishing the grounds for a united country, that would definitely be a second mistake."

President Bush has voiced his own concerns about democracy in Russia because President Putin has been centralizing more and more power in the Kremlin. Putin, however, insists he is not rolling back democracy, although he has eliminated some public elections.

"There was a time when the regional governors were elected, correct?" asks Wallace.

"Absolutely right," says Putin.

"And, all of a sudden, Putin says, 'No, no, no. I shall appoint the governors.' That's democracy?" asks Wallace. "That's not democracy, the way I understand it. Now maybe, I'm just dead wrong."

"You're absolutely wrong," says Putin, laughing. "And you know you are. For instance, India is called the largest world democracy. But their governors have always been appointed by the central government, and nobody disputes that India is a large democracy."

"Why did you change from electing your governors to appointing your governors?" asks Wallace.

"The principle of appointing regional leaders is not a sign of a lack of democracy," says Putin, who then criticized America's Electoral College system.

"In the United States, you first elect the electors and then they vote for the presidential candidates. In Russia, the president is elected through the direct vote of the whole population -- that might be even more democratic," says Putin. "And you have other problems in your elections. Four years ago, your presidential election was decided by the court. But we're not going to poke our nose into your democratic system because that's up to the American people."

His obvious implication was that Americans should not poke their nose into Russia's democracy. But 60 Minutes had some questions of our own about freedom of the press in Russia.

"I am told that there are three major TV news channels and that they are controlled by you," says Wallace. "Your people run these news channels and the opposition has no news channels, if there is indeed opposition to you."

"There is opposition to me. It's normal," says Putin. "The opposition has an opportunity to openly express its views and that's what they are doing."

Where?

"Everywhere," says Putin. "Including in the streets, and on radio and television and in newspapers."

This is true, but Putin did not deny that the Kremlin controls the most powerful news broadcasts on the three main television networks. But Putin is a counter-puncher who then pointed to problems between journalists and the government in the United States: "Haven't we seen resignations of leading American journalists from the national media due to their positions on Iraq?"

"What are you saying, Mr. President?" asks Wallace. "Journalists resigning because what?"

"Don't you know that some of the American journalists were fired because of their positions on Iraq or the presidential election campaign?" says Putin.

"Were you talking about Dan Rather, at CBS News?" asks Wallace.

"Yes, exactly," says Putin, who apparently believed that Rather's resignation as anchor of the CBS Evening News meant that he had been fired from CBS.

"On our TV screens, we saw him resigning," says Putin. "We understood that he was forced to resign by his bosses at CBS. This is a problem of your democracy, not ours."

"He still works for CBS News," says Wallace. "He continues to work as a matter of fact on 60 Minutes." At first, the presidency seemed frightening to Putin. His reluctance to accept it is apparent in a picture of Boris Yeltsin handing him the reins of power.

"You look as though you're overwhelmed or unhappy or worried," says Wallace, of the picture.

"Definitely, all the thoughts you have mentioned," says Putin. "I had told Yeltsin that I was not prepared, because this, in my view, was a very difficult, very complex fate. And I had never thought about becoming president."

Putin inherited a mess from Yeltsin. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, more than 20 Russians had become instant billionaires by snapping up Russia's state industries and natural resources at bargain prices. They're called the oligarchs.

Putin is quick to criticize them, but will not speak ill of Yeltsin.

"The fact of the matter is, Mr. President, that Boris Yeltsin made it possible for his friends, the oligarchs, to get a leg up in return for which they helped him in his last election campaign," says Wallace. "It was a quid prod quo. Right?"

"You have oversimplified. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we faced economic problems. We faced terrorism and practically civil war," says Putin.

"It had nothing to do with Boris Yeltsin?" asks Wallace.

"They took advantage of the weakness of the state by using their money to buy influence in the legislature, and the judicial system, and the mass media," says Putin.

Putin is now cracking down on many of the oligarchs, forcing them to return some of their ill-gotten gains. Several billionaires have gone into exile, a few into Russian prisons.

"Corruption is every place in Russia. Agreed? Why? To get anything done, money," says Wallace. "You want an apartment? A bribe. You want a job? A bribe. And you know, who tells me this? My Russian friends. They're disgusted by it, but they say it's a fact of life. Corruption in Russia."

Asks Putin: "Have your American friends never told you about corruption in the United States?"

Putin blames much of the corruption on the oligarchs. Most of them are Jewish and President Putin has made a point of speaking out against the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Russia.

"I said that even in our country, most unfortunately, we see signs of neo-Nazism, of extremism, of anti-Semitism," says Putin. "And for us, this is a special evil, because Russia is a multi-ethnic, multi-national country. And as soon as we let anti-Semitism pop up, national intolerance grows, and that is bad for the country."

Today, all over Moscow, banners celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. More than 50 world leaders have arrived.

What does Putin hope to accomplish, with all of the heads of state here?

"We should not forget the things that brought us together, that united us," says Putin. "And that we need to unite our efforts again to counter contemporary threats and challenges. We have to look to the future. To fight for the future of mankind."

"They're pressing us to end the interview," says Wallace. "Just a few more [questions]."

"Nobody can be pressing us because I'm the president," says Putin, laughing.

"So, in English, what would you like to say to the American people?" asks Wallace.

"I want to say a lot, really a lot," says Putin, in Russian. "But I am afraid to offend Americans with my improper pronunciation."

"Don't worry about it," says Wallace.

"And, at the conclusion, I would like to say only one thing," says Putin, who adds in English, "All the best to every family in America."