51Âþ»­

An award-winning foreign correspondent who covered the wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bosnia and Iraq has told a 51Âþ»­ audience about the day he met Russian president Vladimir Putin – and how the president’s change from diplomat to warmonger haunts him.

Jim Laurie (leaning forward) interviews Putin with Ajay Kumar from India and Anthony Yuen from China for Star TV

Jim Laurie, who worked for the ABC network and Star TV in the US among others, gave a talk to an enthralled audience as part of last week’s Cultural eXchanges Festival – a celebration of arts and culture organised by final year students on 51Âþ»­’s Arts and Festivals Management course.

Speaking to host and historian Professor Kenneth Morrison, Laurie said that his meeting with Putin in Moscow in 2003 ‘is something that has really haunted me over the last month’ after seeing the Ukraine pushed into an unprovoked invasion and war.

He said: “Putin impressed me as someone who was calculating and analytical. He talked off camera to me about his time in the KGB in Germany when the Berlin Wall was coming down.

“He said that he called Moscow for instructions about what to do, but nothing came. From that moment he said he was determined that there would not be a weak Moscow again.”

When they met, Putin was very much regarded in the West as something of a partner in the war against terror. But Laurie says all this has changed.

“He is a ruthless dictator who is enamoured with a great will and delusional power to return Russia back to the time of the Tsars or the Soviet Union.

“Almost everything he told me at the time in was rational and that rationality seems to be lost in the character of Putin in 2022".

Prof Morrison asked Laurie if we could get to a stage where Russia uses much heavier weapons in Ukraine, as they did in Chechnya in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Laurie said: “I think we are already there. This invasion is going to get much worse and I do not know what the end will be like. It strikes me that nobody is able to talk to Putin as he is approaching the edge of a cliff that he is prepared to jump off.”

Answering questions from the audience, Laurie was asked about China’s involvement in brokering peace.

Laurie, who set up the first American TV network bureau in China, said: “I think China were taken by surprise by the ferocity of the Russian attack and the fact it was not over quickly.

“When it did not happen within 48 hours there was a lot of consternation in places where you would not normally have found it.

“China is befuddled. If anyone could offer services as a mediator it would be China. But China in the past has never proved to be a good mediator in war. If it did happen it would be helpful and extraordinary, but I have my doubts”

Laurie was also asked about which global event would he have liked to have reported on.

He said: “I wish I was young and eager enough to be involved in the current war.

“The greatest stories I have told are about the people, the refugees. I would like to be in Poland and eastern Ukraine – talking to the people who really need help from an onslaught they never expected.”