Madeleine Albright in her final op-ed described Putin as 'small and pale' and 'almost reptilian'

In her final article before her death, Madeleine Albright recalled her apprehension after her first meeting with Putin.

Albright recalled her first impressions of Putin after meeting him in 2000 in a piece published in the New York Times on February 23, the day before Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

He was acting president after taking over from Boris Yeltsin. Albright was President Bill Clinton's secretary of state.

Albright was struck by the contrast between Mr. Putin and Boris Yeltsin when she sat across a small table from him in the Kremlin.

I recorded my impressions as I flew home.

The line that Putin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness was included in her notes.

Russia was seeking better relations with the West at the time of their meeting. In the decades since Putin rejected those ties, he has enacted what Albright described in the op-ed asStalin's playbook and imposed a repressive dictatorship.

Albright warned in the essay that if Russia invaded Ukraine it would be an historic error, and described the consequences Russia would likely face, including a determined Ukrainian resistance, economic sanctions, and a galvanized NATO alliance.

She made many of her predictions in the essay.

Albright was the first woman to serve as Secretary of State.

Albright was born in Czechoslovakia. When Nazi Germany invaded in 1939, her family fled and moved to the US.

She warned of the rise of fascist authoritarianism in her final years. She was a critic of Donald Trump.