A Times reader, Lawrence DeVine, has a few questions about The Times’s publication of an Op-Ed article in Thursday’s paper by Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia. He asks: “Did he call up the editorial page editor and say, hey, how would you like 800 words on you, us and Syria, I’ll have it in by Wednesday night deadline, no sweat, I’ll take your usual freelance rates?”

It didn’t happen just that way, the editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal told me Thursday morning, but it also wasn’t too much more complicated than that.

The Times editorial department was approached Wednesday by an American public relations firm that represents Mr. Putin, offering the piece. Also on Wednesday, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, in the course of an interview about Syria, mentioned to The Times’s Moscow bureau chief Steven Lee Myers that an article was in the works.

Mr. Rosenthal agreed to review the article and quickly decided to publish it. It was posted on the Times Web site by Wednesday evening.

“I thought it was well-written, well-argued,” he said. “I don’t agree with many of the points in it, but that is irrelevant.”

“Syria is a huge story and Putin is a central figure in it,” giving the piece great news value, he said. It has created a major stir, including plenty of criticism. Richard Murphy of Fairfield, Conn., wrote to me Thursday with harsh words for The Times’s decision to publish it. He described himself as “horrified” and said that The Times was “aiding and abetting a long-term foe of the United States.”

Mr. Rosenthal rejects that argument.

“There is no ideological litmus test” for an Op-Ed article, he said. In addition, he said, it is not the purpose of the Op-Ed pages to help or hurt the American government. It is to present a variety of interesting and newsworthy points of view, at least some of which will be contrary to The Times’s own point of view, expressed in its editorials.

The Times has published very few Op-Ed pieces by heads of state, Mr. Rosenthal said, partly because they have their own ways of getting their messages out.

This was different, he said, because “everyone wants to hear from Putin right now” and this article was “fascinating and detailed,” providing new information.

I asked him about Mr. Putin’s statement that there is “every reason to believe” that the poison gas has been used by opposition forces, not the Syrian government – which many now do not believe to be true. Mr. Rosenthal said that “falls into the category of opinion.”

Mr. Rosenthal said there was no way of knowing whether Mr. Putin himself wrote the article – “with a public official you can never know,” because they tend to have staffers who write their speeches and other communications. But, he said, it needed virtually no editing and went through almost no changes. “It was an amazingly good translation,” he said.

Very few Op-Ed articles have received as much immediate attention, he said. Those that come to mind are Mona Simpson’s piece about her late brother, Steve Jobs; Angelina Jolie’s article about her double mastectomy; and the piece by Greg Smith about why he resigned from Goldman Sachs.

From my point of view, The Times’s publishing the Putin Op-Ed was completely legitimate. Whether you agree with it or not, whether you approve of Mr. Putin or not, it could hardly be more newsworthy or interesting. Just as with any Op-Ed piece, The Times’s publication of this one is not an endorsement of him or his ideas.

As for whether “the usual freelance rates” apply here, the answer is unsurprising. Mr. Putin won’t be paid.

The public relations firm that pitched the Putin article to The Times was Ketchum, as others, including Rosie Gray from BuzzFeed, reported Thursday. The relationship between Ketchum and Russia was explored by ProPublica, the investigative reporting organization, last year. In a recent ProPublica post, Justin Elliott summarizes the new developments and recaps what was reported earlier, including that Ketchum received $1.9 million from Russia in the first half of this year

The Washington Post’s foreign affairs blogger, Max Fisher, fact-checked and commented Thursday on the Putin Op-Ed, characterizing it as fascinating, but containing “undeniable hypocrisy and even moments of dishonesty.” Times readers would benefit from a similar examination. And a Guardian story reported that, according to his spokesman, Mr. Putin wrote most of the article himself with contributions from his staff.