World leaders must have been wondering yesterday who would be next, after the Kremlin chief had embarrassed two of his guests at the G8 summit here with barbed jokes about their democratic records.

But they were powerless to respond to a man at the pinnacle of his political career and at the helm of a resurgent economic powerhouse.

“What can you say to a man who controls the weather?” asked one Western diplomat after Russian authorities were reported to have scrambled cloud-seeding jets to disperse a rainstorm.

Mr Putin’s dig at Mr Bush came during their joint news conference, casting doubts on the close personal friendship that the two men claim to enjoy. Mr Bush said that he had told the Russian leader that people in the United States wanted Russia to promote the sort of democratic institutions that exist in Iraq.

Mr Putin’s deadpan response caused even the thick-skinned Texan to blush. “To be honest, we certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq,” Mr Putin said, prompting laughter and applause from reporters.

Later in the day Mr Putin took a swipe at Mr Blair over his links to Lord Levy, the Labour party fundraiser.

Asked by a British reporter how he would respond to Mr Blair’s concerns about Russian democracy, Mr Putin said he was always glad to hear fellow leaders’ views.

Then, after a long pause, he smiled and added: “There are also other questions; questions, let’s say, about the fight against corruption. We’d be interested in hearing your experience, including how it applies to Lord Levy.”

American and British officials yesterday brushed off the remarks as harmless jokes between old friends that would neither disrupt the main work of the summit nor affect bilateral relations.

“We think he has a little joke for every leader,” said a spokesman for Mr Blair. “We have not lost our sense of humour.”

The issue did not come up again in a bilateral meeting between the two men yesterday. But political analysts said that Mr Putin’s remarks reflected his irritation at recent criticism of his own democratic credentials — especially from London.

Last week the British Ambassador addressed a conference of the Kremlin’s most ardent opponents, despite a warning that it would be seen as an unfriendly gesture.

“The friendship between Mr Putin and Mr Blair has been undermined,” said Sergei Markov, a political analyst with close ties to the Kremlin. “President Putin’s remarks were not diplomatic. But he’s not a diplomat: he’s a leader. Diplomats minimise problems. Leaders confront them.”

Mr Putin aimed another barb at Mr Blair last night, expressing frustration that Britain had granted political asylum to Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen rebel leader wanted in Russia on terrorism charges.

Mr Putin’s confrontational style also mirrors his growing confidence on the international stage. When he took over as president in 2000, he was written off by many as a grey, transitional figure.

Today he is one of Russia’s most popular and powerful leaders since Peter the Great, the tsar who founded St Petersburg in 1703. By contrast, more than half of his G8 counterparts — Messrs Bush, Blair, Chirac and Koizumi — are “lame ducks” nearing the end of their tenures.

“I think he’s enjoying himself. He’s proud,” said another source close to the Kremlin. “He’s also a bit of a showman. He’s a performer and he thinks on his feet, including with the media.”

Mr Putin has a long history of making acerbic off-the-cuff comments. In 1999 he vowed to hunt and destroy Chechen rebels, even “in the s***house”.

Mr Blair is still smarting from the time in 2003 when Mr Putin, at a joint news conference, mocked the failure of Britain and the United States to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

And just last week, Mr Putin took a personal stab at Mr Cheney, who criticised the Kremlin in May for backsliding on democracy and using its energy resources to blackmail neighbours. Mr Putin called the speech an “unsuccessful hunting shot” in a reference to Mr Cheney’s accidental shooting of a hunting companion.

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