Tsarist Russia

The Russian leader reacts to the murder of an investigative journalist.

Ms. Politkovskaya’s funeral, in fact, displayed the deep divisions in today’s Russia between those in power and those not. The mourners included her family and friends, colleagues and politicians, though almost all from outside the center of power, and several foreign diplomats, including Ambassador William J. Burns of the United States, whose governments have denounced her killing far more forcefully than Mr. Putin or any other senior government leaders here.

Mr. Putin, traveling in Germany, spoke about her death publicly for the first time on Tuesday, a day after the Kremlin reported that he assured President Bush in a telephone conversation that there would be a thorough investigation. He called her killing “a crime of loathsome brutality.”

Then he went on. “I think that journalists should be aware that her influence on political life was extremely insignificant in scale,” Mr. Putin said, according to the news agency Interfax. “She was known in journalist and human rights circles, but her influence on political life in Russia was minimal.”

The American leader in June of 2001.

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue.

"I was able to get a sense of his soul.

No wonder the two get along so well.