MOSCOW — When President Vladimir V. Putin meets President Bush in St. Petersburg on Saturday, more than a few observers will be wondering just how Russia's steely leader opposed a hyperpower over the war in Iraq and came away unscathed.
The answer lies somewhere between Bush's evident personal regard for Russia's leader, and Putin's skill in playing his hand on the world stage. Yet for all his stature abroad, Putin is looking increasingly vulnerable at home, facing growing fears that his dominance of the state machinery has peaked.
Acerbic and decisive in public, able to hold his own with world leaders of all stripes, Putin has proven mystifyingly unable to marshal his global stature and his personal popularity even to dispense with the Kremlin's political troublemakers, much less to carry out the painful social changes he has repeatedly said Russia still needs to make.
Three years into his term, many experts have concluded that Putin's outward show of authority masks a careful balancing act among competing interests, from tycoons to political kingpins, who helped create his amazing success and benefit from it.
On its face, this is an odd time for doubts. Putin has won general acclaim for transforming Russia from Skid Row deadbeat to sober, even respected nation-state. Public opinion polls routinely accord him the approval of seven in 10 Russians.
Moreover, thanks almost exclusively to high oil prices, Russia's economy has racked up five consecutive years of growth at a time of worldwide stagnation.
The president's own rhetoric remains tough as ever. Not two weeks ago, in his annual address to the Russian parliament, Putin recommitted himself to creating a "sustainable democracy where human, political and civil rights will be fully ensured," and suggested opening political party finances to public scrutiny and giving the parliament a greater say in forming the government.
The problem, analysts say, is with performance. After pushing a sweeping tax-system overhaul and new legal codes through parliament in his first two years, Putin has been unable to press much more of his economic and social revolution through a government he supposedly dominates.
Lilia Shevtsova, a domestic political scholar at the Cargenie Endowment's Moscow Center, said in a recent interview: "I have an image of Putin sitting in the bunker constantly pressing buttons," adding that, "and until recently, he didn't know that the bunker isn't connected to reality, that all the ties are cut."
If that seems a harsh judgment, the growing consensus among outside analysts is that Putin is hardly the all-powerful figure his poll ratings and global reputation would suggest.