Illegal use of the hands

DIPLOMATIC HISTORY is truffled with misunderstandings, but it's been a long time since there has been anything to match the moment last Saturday when Russia's President Vladimir Putin, after admiring the Super Bowl ring shown him by Patriots owner Robert Kraft, plopped it into his pocket. Graciously, diplomatically, Kraft said yesterday that he had wittingly given the ring as a gift to Putin.

Nevertheless, as certain Russian robber barons have learned the hard way, Putin does have a habit of pocketing valuable pieces of private property. From his point of view, of course, the occasional prosecution of an out-of-line media magnate or petroleum mogul, followed by the seizure of their holdings, is merely a matter of taking back formerly state-owned property that had been bestowed on capitalist cronies by Kremlin insiders.

To Putin, no doubt, the Pats' opulent Super Bowl ring, with its 124 diamonds, appeared just another of the baubles foreign favor-seekers are wont to confer on the personage serving as the current emperor of all the Russians. After all, Kraft was received at the Konstantinovsky Palace outside St. Petersburg in the company of CEOs from IBM, Intel, Citigroup, and International Paper. Putin can be forgiven for assuming that this august claque of American business leaders had not come for the waters.

Whether or not Kraft's fellow travelers were in fact angling for a lucrative concession in Russia for their companies, it is not hard to imagine a Putin adviser whispering in the boss's ear: ''These guys came for a reason, not the season." No great leap of logic was required for Putin to conclude that the Patriots' $25,000 Super Bowl ring was meant as a gift, perhaps as a first installment on the inducements needed to secure a sweet low-tax deal for players on this visiting team.

Far-flung as the Patriots' fame has become, Kraft himself could not possibly be entertaining the idea of locating an NFL franchise in Moscow or St. Petersburg. On the other hand, photos flashed around the world of Putin and Kraft shaking hands while the erstwhile KGB agent fingers the gaudy Super Bowl ring show media oligarch Rupert Murdoch standing between them, smiling like a fellow who is used to being at the right place at the right time.

Even if Kraft himself expected nothing in return for his ring, Murdoch would likely feel right at home were Putin to invite Fox News to play the part that Pravda once played in Soviet times, or even that Kremlin-controlled Russian TV plays today. So Putin may have thought Kraft gave him the ring to procure a favor for Murdoch. We only hope that Putin, who is notoriously proud of his black belt in karate, does not expect to line up at strong safety this fall for Coach Belichick.