MOSCOW — Time magazine has named Vladimir Putin its "Person of the Year."

Those who don't like Putin gleefully remind everyone that now he has joined some of the most hideous dictators in modern history, Hitler and Stalin. Those who like Putin point out that the company includes a lot of very decent people who had fought for peace, against hunger and made a notable contribution to the present world order.

Right off, we should give up the discussion of the criteria the magazine uses to choose the "Person of the Year." They are not debatable, they are non-existent. The official formula that credits Putin with displaying "exceptional skill in leading the country" would be a lot more appropriate to describing aerobatics. Which is why the Time article about Putin's presidency is as contradictory as the presidency itself.

The fact itself is remarkable and very pleasant for Putin. This became more than clear when he gave the obligatory interview to Time journalists before the much-prized title was officially conferred on him. But the Americans so annoyed him with their questions that first he demanded that they disclose the names and safe houses of the most corrupt Russian officials and then declared the interview finished without inviting them to tea. True, the interview lasted more than three hours, so that the journalists who were hoping for the dessert ought to have grasped that presidential cordiality and open-handed Russian hospitality were different things.

I have no illusions that Time has conferred the title on Putin because it likes him. Most probably the magazine meant to highlight the role of Russia in the modern world. When the Kremlin gives the instruction to turn off the gas tap, half the world is about to faint. It is one thing to discuss Khodorkovsky and the way top Russian lawyers use electoral law to put down sources of instability, and it is quite another thing when there is no gas in your stove when you want to make your morning coffee.

A president who can afford to pursue such a policy deserves close attention. He jolts Western politicians out of the complacency that they have felt after the Soviet threat vanished, and he comes across as a serious irritant or even a threat to the man in the street.

Putin's Munich speech also showed that Russia no longer saw the West as a partner, but as a threat to its security. The speech was like a bombshell. Initially it seemed to be no more than an emotional outburst, but when long-range aviation resumed its flights, when Russia pointedly carried out successful rocket launches and declared its withdrawal from the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, it became clear that the president was determined to make the world reckon with him and that Russia's security interests were not the same as those of the West. At least, that was the impression he had notwithstanding his chumminess with his foreign counterparts.

So, Time describes the Russian president as an extremely contradictory person. Inwardly cold, unblinking, brooking no opposition inside the country, he was more aware than anyone in Russia that it was he, Vladimir Putin, that the country needed. In order to induce Chechnya to make peace, to make the oligarchs renounce, at least publicly, any attempts to influence the Kremlin, and to give back to the impoverished Russians reason to be proud of their country. And on that point Vladimir Putin is more sincere than anyone. "Every period has its own messiah" might well be his slogan.

The West is worried about lack of free speech and democracy in Russia, and Putin is worried about delays of wages and pensions. This is his top priority. That is his idea of stability, which he maintains with the help of his rigorous vertical power structure. This accounts for his intolerance of opponents and blistering criticism directed at them. His message is: I am sustaining the vertical structure with both my hands, and I don't care what my critics try to cadge from foreign embassies.

Don't look Putin in the eye. Look at the roots. Time has done it. Perhaps, as many think, its choice of person of the year was a mistake.

But there is no mistake about one thing: Russia is resurgent, and the start of that resurgence coincided with Vladimir Putin's presidency.

Boris Kaimakov is a political commentator for the Russian News and Information Agency Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are his own.

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