Back In The USSR

From Yahoo:
"Putin: 'We don't want the USSR back but no one believes us'"

Russia is not trying to bring back the USSR, President Vladimir Putin said in a documentary aired Sunday, but the problem is that "nobody wants to believe it". Since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, which saw pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych ousted by pro-European demonstrators, Moscow has accused the West of using "the politics of containment" in a Cold War throwback.  "With Ukraine and other areas of the former USSR, I'm sure our Western partners aren't working in the interests of Ukraine, they are working to prevent the recreation of the USSR," he said in "World Order", a documentary broadcast on the public Rossiya 1 channel. "But nobody wants to believe us, nobody wants to believe that we're not trying to bring the Soviet Union back," he said. The president also used the documentary to take a familiar swipe at Western intervention in North Africa and the Middle East.  "You can't just impose your version of democracy, of good and evil, onto people of other cultures, with other religions and traditions in this mechanic, automatic way," he said.  "Apparently (the West) think they're infallible, but when the moment comes to take some responsibility, they disappear."

 

^ It's hard to believe a man who was so invested in the Soviet Union (ie the KGB) and was one of a few allowed to live outside the country (as a spy.) It doesn't help his case when he called the collapse of the USSR the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th Century (paraphrasing.) Actions often speak louder than words and things have been returning to the old Soviet ways since Putin came into power. The "new" national anthem has the old Soviet music to it. All sorts of Soviet symbols have sprang up around the country. Any former Soviet republic (the near-abroad as the Russians call it) that tries to move away from Russia's influence is quickly attacked by Russia (ie the Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, etc.) Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are "safe" because they are part of the EU and NATO. The censorship of foreigners within Russia as well as the censorship of Russians within their own country has slowly returned to the "old" ways. Also Putin has created a cult of personality around himself like many Soviet leaders did.  Even the current military build-up (use of the military outside of Russia) and the economic crisis remind me of how the Soviet Union was in the 1980s and 1990s right before it collapsed. All of these examples and more are the reason that many people don't believe that Putin doesn't want a return to the "glory" days of the USSR. ^

 

http://news.yahoo.com/putin-dont-want-ussr-back-no-one-believes-053543849.html