Madeleine Albright had a lot to say about Putin — and she didn't mince words

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When Madeleine Albright met Russian President Vladimir Putin more than 20 years ago as the U.S. secretary of state, she said he was trying to ingratiate himself to then-President Clinton — but Putin also "had a view of how things were going to go."

Albright, the first woman to become U.S. secretary of state, has died at the age of 84, according to her family.

She served as secretary of state from 1997 to 2001 during the Clinton administration. Clinton appointed her ambassador to the United Nations by Clinton 1993.

Albright spoke with NPR last June ahead of a meeting in Geneva between Russian and U.S. leaders. The former secretary of state recalled the first time she met Putin, in 1999 — emphasizing that his agenda was clear from the beginning.

He was "trying very hard to ingratiate himself with President Clinton," she said during an interview on All Things Considered.

"But my impression in the second two meetings were that he very much liked the background of being in the Kremlin with all its history, that he was smart, that he was prepared and that he had a view about how things were going to go," Albright added.