Russia’s PM Putin and President Medvedev have been hosting groups of Western journalists, to quite good effect from the Russian point of view.

Even if some of the language used by Putin might have been a bit … overvivid.

A tendency also visible these days in the robust style of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov?

These three top Russian leaders are each confident, intelligent, hard and eloquent men. They work up national Russian positions untrammelled by the need to ‘consult partners’ or to worry overmuch about public opinion.

And they have canny media advisers suggesting ways of complicating the emotional and intellectual responses of the Western journalists they talk to – Putin ended his briefing session with a minute’s silence for the victims of 9/11. 

That said, the Putin/Medvedev briefings seem to have offered a toned-down, would-be reassuring, definitely non-imperial account of Russian motives in partitioning Georgia. They stressed that they wanted no new Cold War – just Understanding.

Maybe they had grasped that the Georgia exercise was not cost-free:

The benchmark RTS index has lost 46 percent of its value since its peak in May, representing a paper loss of about $700 billion for Russian companies.

Putin reportedly even offered a new, flexible position on Ukraine/NATO, which he might come to regret in the future:

On Ukraine and its possible future membership of Nato, Mr Putin warned that there was no public majority in the country itself [Note: ie in Ukraine] in support of this… 

The one-time head of the rebranded KGB, the FSB, bemoaned what he described as Russia being "embattled and encircled" by a "hostile West", accompanying his compaints with occasional sighs of frustration. Mr Putin said that Russia strongly opposed Nato membership for its western neighbour but for the first time said that if the Ukrainian people voted to join Nato, "that would be their decision". In which case, "so be it", he added. This was a sharp change from his position two years ago when he accepted Ukraine might join the EU but expressed outright opposition to it joining Nato.

One way or the other, these top Russians are all on top of their game.

And very good at being Russian.