«An inelegant gesture»: Pascal Couchepin recounts his meeting with Putin in 2003

Today, Vladimir Putin is the focus of many questions. Who is Vladimir Putin? What does he really want? Pascal Couchepin, former President of the Swiss Confederation, tells us about his meeting with the Russian President in 2003.

Pascal Couchepin: That was in 2003 - the year I was President of the Swiss Confederation. We were looking to make contact with as many officials and heads of state as possible. The previous year had seen the famous Überlingen incident [editor's note: collision between two aircraft, one Russian, over Germany, but in airspace controlled by Switzerland], involving Skyguide as the Swiss company responsible for airspace control. When we had the chance, in quotation marks, to go to Moscow, I immediately said we had to go, as the