Cowboy Putin

Translation: Putin rescued Russia from the chaos of the 1990s, banished or imprisoned dangerous billionaires and regained respect for his newly enriched country.

And Roosevelt ran for a third and fourth term because his country needed him. Translation: Putin, too, should stay.

Putin used the Roosevelt analogy on Thursday when he spoke to reporters after a televised question-and-answer session with citizens. Asked about his vision for Russia, the president invoked the New Deal, saying that 8220;Roosevelt laid out his plan for the country8217;s development for decades in advance8221; and that he often battled the elites.

In a glowing 90-minute documentary on FDR that aired on Sunday on RTR, a state TV channel usually given to growling at Washington, a narrator said that America8217;s 32nd president 8220;came to the conclusion that he was the only person in the country who could lead America in the right direction through the most difficult period in the country8217;s history. He became the only president of the United States elected for a third time. Americans trusted him,8221; the narrator said.

FDR has long held a special place in Russia. He is known as the distant ally whose massive aid shipments helped Soviet forces turn back hordes of Nazi invaders in what people here call the Great Patriotic War.

His newly forged links to Putin appear to be part of an orchestrated campaign to position the Russian president in the glow of historical greatness and to provide him with a compelling rationale for holding on to power. There have been numerous newspaper articles, a major conference and several documentaries on FDR8217;s life, all of which, with varying degrees of subtlety, have drawn parallels with Putin8217;s rule and future role as the end of his second term nears.

In the RTR documentary, Anatoly Utkin of the Institute of USA and Canada Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says, 8220;In 1939, Americans were facing exactly the same problem as we are now 8212; the third term.8221;

8220;Of course it8217;s about the third term, and a fourth term, and I8217;m sure it8217;s organised from the Kremlin,8221; said Dmitry Oreshkin, a political analyst and head of the independent Mercator Group, a Moscow consulting firm. 8220;Roosevelt is now very popular in Russia. It8217;s very artificial because Russians do not understand the specifics of American history. But it8217;s successful. It has created the myth, not only of a strong leader, but that state capitalism improves the fortunes of a country.8221;

Putin has insisted that he will not run for a third consecutive term as president, which is barred by the constitution. But he has hinted that he may become prime minister and has agreed to run at the head of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party in December8217;s elections.

8220;There is no need to pretend that we are not referring to Putin when we talk about Roosevelt,8221; said Gleb Pavlovsky, the Kremlin8217;s leading political consultant, at a conference held earlier this year to mark the 125th anniversary of FDR8217;s birth, a date that passed largely unnoticed in the United States. 8220;When Putin 8212; I mean Roosevelt 8212; when Roosevelt was contemplating the possibility of running for a third term, he chose to do this against his own wishes.8221;

As Putin himself put it in his State of the Nation address last year, 8220;The toes of some people are being stepped on and are going to be stepped on.8221; The line came from one of Roosevelt8217;s fireside chats in 1934.