Elsewhere in his prepared address, however, Putin referred to unnamed, hostile foreign powers that "think that Russia, as one of the greatest nuclear powers of the world, is still a threat, and this threat has to be eliminated." Terrorism, Putin said, "is only an instrument to achieve these goals." Since al-Qaida and other Islamist extremists couldn't possibly be threatened by Russia's nuclear arsenal, Putin was apparently referring to the West.
Putin said that although the Soviet Union had disintegrated, "the nucleus of that giant" was preserved. "We have called the new country the Russian Federation." His remarks seem to imply that present-day Russia is not a country in its own right, and that it could just as well be called something else. This falls into line with the praise for the Soviet past, and for Josef Stalin in particular, in programs on state television and in newly revised history textbooks used in the schools. For Putin, Stalin seems to be something of a role model.
17 posted on 09/11/2004 4:58:24 PM PDT by familyop
(Essayons)