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Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a Persian leopard cub at a breeding and rehabilitation center in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Perhaps the most important vote in Russia's public selection of a new Olympic mascot was cast when Putin said he wanted a funky leopard to represent the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. Browse through for more photos of Putin trying his hand at different activities.
Putin skis at the Laura Cross Country and Biathlon Centre near Sochi on January 3.
Putin visits a clinic where terrorist attack victims are being treated in Volgograd on January 1. The twin suicide strikes killed 34 and raised concerns over security at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games. Putin called Russia's deadliest bombings in three years an "abomination."
Putin holds a pike he caught in the Siberian Tuva region of Russia on July 20, 2013.
Putin enjoys some fishing during his vacation to the Tuva region on July 20, 2013. For years, Russia's leader has cultivated a populist image in the Russian media.
Putin submerges on board Sea Explorer 5 bathyscaphe near the isle of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland on July 15, 2013.
Putin studies a crane during an experiment called Flight of Hope on September 5, 2012, in which he piloted a hang glider, aiming to lead the birds into flight. It's part of a project to save the rare species of crane.
Putin takes part in a training session for young ice hockey players before the "Golden Puck" youth tournament final in Moscow on April 15, 2011.
Putin rides a Harley-Davidson to an international biker convention in southern Ukraine on July 14, 2010.
The Russian president aims at a whale with an arbalest (crossbow) to take a piece of its skin for analysis at Olga Bay on August 25, 2010 .
A wetsuit-clad Putin embarks on a dive to an underwater archaeological site at Phanagoria on the Taman Peninsula on August 10, 2011.
Famed for his love of martial arts, Putin throws a competitor in a judo session at an athletics school in St. Petersburg on December 18, 2009.
Putin during his vacation in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009.
Putin swims the butterfly during his vacation outside the town of Kyzyl in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009.
Assisted by a Russian scientist, Putin fixes a satellite transmitter to a tiger during his visit to the Ussuriysky forest reserve of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Far East on August 31, 2008.
Putin carries a hunting rifle in the Republic of Tuva on September 3, 2007.
A shirtless Putin fishing in the headwaters of the Yenisei River in the Republic of Tuva on August 13, 2007.
Putin in the cockpit of a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber jet at a military airport on August 16, 2005, before his supersonic flight.
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- Putin accused of fuelling separatist rebellion in mainly Russian-speaking east of Ukraine
- On international stage, Russia has been excluded from G8 group of industrialized nations
- But Russian leader appears unmoved, his Ukraine policy unchanged
- Putin told CNN's Matthew Chance: Russians should be given guarantees no one attacks us
Moscow (CNN) -- The first frosts of winter have already dusted the spectacular city of St. Petersburg with a powder of glistening ice. The air outside feels sharp and crisp. Russians hurry along the elegant boulevards, wrapped up tight against the biting cold. Russia's winter, its annual deep freeze, has begun.
But this year there's more than just a bitter chill in the air. For the past nine months relations with the West have become decidedly frosty too.
On the face of it the problem is Ukraine.
The West backed a popular uprising there in March, which toppled a Kremlin-friendly government.
Infuriated, Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, annexed the strategic Crimean Peninsula, where it has a key naval base.
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Since then he has been accused of fuelling a separatist rebellion in the mainly Russian-speaking east of the country. That unrest has already cost more than 4,000 lives.
The United States and Europe have imposed costly sanctions and travel bans. It threatens more.
On the international stage, Russia has been excluded from the G8 group of industrialized nations. At the recent G20 summit in Brisbane, President Putin was cold-shouldered by his Western counterparts.
But the Russian leader appears unmoved, his Ukraine policy unchanged.
One fascinating explanation for the failure of Western sanctions and rebukes to change this vast country's behavior may be in the mindset, the world view, of its strongman president.
I'm one of the few Western journalists to have sat down with Vladimir Putin.
I met him at his residence outside Sochi in 2008, just after Russia's invasion of Georgia.
I asked him back then if he could guarantee that Russian troops would not invade other former Soviet states, like Ukraine.
He reacted quite angrily, saying he objected to my question. It was Russians, he said, who should be given guarantees that no one attacks us.
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The comment sheds light, I think, on how Vladimir Putin sees the world outside the walls of the Kremlin.
For him, Russia is under constant threat from the West. NATO expansion into former Eastern Bloc nations has eroded Russia's security. The prospect of Georgia joining the western military alliance, let alone Ukraine, is unthinkable for him.
The Cold War, from this perspective, has never really ended; we're still living in the 1980s.
The West, in particular the United States, still strives to "subjugate" Russia. President Putin repeated this just a few days ago in Moscow.
Sanctions are an inevitable consequence of Russia's resistance to this subjugation. Ukraine was the motive, but if it had not been Ukraine it would likely have been something else.
From a Western perspective, this seems like a cynical distortion of the facts, a Kremlin ploy to confuse and obfuscate.
But it may help explain why Russia is doing what it is doing, and why sanctions are not changing -- and may never change -- Kremlin policy.
It may also help to explain why, at a time of growing economic hardship, Russia's president remains so utterly popular at home.
His world view is theirs too. Like the harsh cold of the coming Russian winter, confrontation with the West is inevitable and must be endured.
