I am quoting a TASS report which I find amazing:
"ST. PETERSBURG, April 28. /TASS/. At the end of the 1990s Russia was pretty close to following the Yugoslav scenario but the unity and integrity of the country was preserved after all, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a media forum of the All-Russia Popular Front, as he commented on the documentary The President, the Rossiya-1 television channel aired last Sunday.
"We preserved the unity and territorial integrity of the country. We must be grateful to the ordinary guys, our military, who in those very complicated conditions were taking the necessary military measures in the North Caucasus. That’s who really deserves greater publicity. They protected the country with their own bodies," Putin said.
"It was not just a local conflict. That local conflict could have caused the situation in Russia to follow the Yugoslav scenario."
"We were very close to that," Putin believes."
In a word, the Russian dictator openly admits that compact groups of de jure Russian population in the Caucasus (and presumably elsewhere) do not identify with their nominal state and only the force of arms prevents them from splitting off Mother Russia together with their land.
Of course, it is not that unusual for a state to keep regions by force because of inability to win the allegiance of their residents by any other means. Talking of the Caucasus in particular, we all remember how Russian troops exterminated tens of thousands of Chechens in order to convince the rest that life in Russia is good for them.
But to boast about such a thing, you must really be Putin!
"ST. PETERSBURG, April 28. /TASS/. At the end of the 1990s Russia was pretty close to following the Yugoslav scenario but the unity and integrity of the country was preserved after all, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a media forum of the All-Russia Popular Front, as he commented on the documentary The President, the Rossiya-1 television channel aired last Sunday.
"We preserved the unity and territorial integrity of the country. We must be grateful to the ordinary guys, our military, who in those very complicated conditions were taking the necessary military measures in the North Caucasus. That’s who really deserves greater publicity. They protected the country with their own bodies," Putin said.
"It was not just a local conflict. That local conflict could have caused the situation in Russia to follow the Yugoslav scenario."
"We were very close to that," Putin believes."
In a word, the Russian dictator openly admits that compact groups of de jure Russian population in the Caucasus (and presumably elsewhere) do not identify with their nominal state and only the force of arms prevents them from splitting off Mother Russia together with their land.
Of course, it is not that unusual for a state to keep regions by force because of inability to win the allegiance of their residents by any other means. Talking of the Caucasus in particular, we all remember how Russian troops exterminated tens of thousands of Chechens in order to convince the rest that life in Russia is good for them.
But to boast about such a thing, you must really be Putin!
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