People in the know have been watching Vladimir Putin with a wary eye for quite some time now. His State of the Union today, in which he described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the last century”, is likely to make many more people take notice:
The former KGB agent said the break-up of the USSR in 1991 had left tens of millions of Russians living in new states outside the Russian Federation.
Speaking the week after Condoleezza Rice, the United States Secretary of State, said he had accumulated too much personal power, the president insisted he remained committed to reform and a strong state.
However, if actions speak louder than words, then the warning bells ought to be going off all over the place. Much of what Putin has done during his reign – er – leadership has been designed to suppress any political opponents and set himself up to be the de facto perpetual leader of a Russia that’s looking more and more like the Soviet Union he so laments each day:
He also rounded on the recent “Orange” revolution in Ukraine and similar protests in Kyrgyzstan, both former Russian allies, warning that they would not be permitted in Russia.
“Any unlawful methods of struggle … for ethnic, religious and other interests contradict the principles of democracy,” he said. Mr Putin warned that such upheavals would not be tolerated in Moscow. “The state will react [to such attempts] with legal, but tough, means.”
Putin is gaining nerve every day. The Soviet Union may be gone, but it’s not forgotten.
I wonder if the Russian mafia see things the same way…