February 13, 2004
Putin mourns the USSR
I want to trust Vladmir Putin, especially considering how many "Chechen" terrorists come from the same corner as the 9/11 hijackers. But how can I not get nervous when he says things like this?
President Vladimir Putin used a campaign speech Thursday to declare the demise of the Soviet Union a "national tragedy on an enormous scale," in what appeared to be his strongest-ever lament of the collapse of the Soviet empire.
Mr. Putin, a former agent of the Soviet KGB spy agency, has praised aspects of the Soviet Union in the past but never so robustly nor in such an important political setting.
"The breakup of the Soviet Union is a national tragedy on an enormous scale," from which "only the elites and nationalists of the republics gained," Mr. Putin said in a nationally televised speech to about 300 campaign workers gathered at Moscow State University.
The President's language was sure to send a chill through the 14 other former Soviet republics that have been independent from Moscow rule for more than a decade.
In the past and to audiences from the former republics, Mr. Putin has sought to ease fears about Russia having designs on rebuilding the old empire.
Posted by damian at February 13, 2004 07:23 AM