Well, we just haven't another suitable candidate. Democracy is not an answer for Russia, everybody wants a Czar here and a czar is not a thing to be changed like gloves.
Yes, there's a new Czar in town...(ok, not that new)...and he doesn't like to talk about revolution. We have a saying in the States - 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss'.
Actully, I can't say that I fully support Putin's foreign policy. I think that he does many mistakes and the main one is the quarrel with the West, Now we have almost no friends and it's not good.
Comrade, are you really in Russia? Where have you been in 90-s, when Yeltsin literally handed your country to USA, in the freezer? Putin is guarding his country, its sovereignty and independence because all Russian history proves Tsar Alexander's words: " Russia only has two allies: Army and Navy".
Not too many Western people know how USA "cooperated" with Russia in 90-s when Yeltsin was Russian president. Putin has mentioned that last week. The story may be a little too long but it's actually pretty shocking.
Putin: Following the radical changes that took place in our country and globally at the turn of the 1990s,
a really unique chance arose to open a truly new chapter in history. I mean the period after the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
Unfortunately, after dividing up the geopolitical heritage of the Soviet Union, our Western partners became convinced of the justness of their cause and declared themselves the victors of the Cold War and
started openly interfering in the affairs of sovereign states, and exporting democracy just like the Soviet leadership had tried to export the socialist revolution to the rest of the world in its time.
Two and a half decades gone to waste, a lot of missed opportunities, and a heavy burden of mutual distrust. The global imbalance has only intensified as a result.
Several landmark bilateral agreements were signed in the 1990s. The first one, the Nunn-Lugar programme, was signed on June 17, 1992. The second one, the HEU-LEU programme, was signed on February 18, 1993. Highly enriched uranium was converted into low-enriched uranium, hence HEU-LEU.
The projects under the first agreement focused on upgrading control systems, accounting and physical protection of nuclear materials, dismantling and scrapping submarines and radioisotope thermoelectric generators.
The Americans have made – and please pay attention here, this is not secret information, simply few are aware of it –
620 verification visits to Russia to check our compliance with the agreements. They visited the holiest of holies of the Russian nuclear weapons complex, namely, the enterprises engaged in developing nuclear warheads and ammunition, and weapons-grade plutonium and uranium.
The United States gained access to all top-secret facilities in Russia. Also, the agreement was almost unilateral in nature.
Under the second agreement, the
Americans made 170 more visits to our enrichment plants, touring their most restricted areas, such as mixing units and storage facilities. The world’s most powerful nuclear enrichment plant – the Urals Electrochemical Combine –
even had a permanent American observation post. Permanent jobs were created directly at the workshops of this combine where the American specialists went to work every day.
The rooms they were sitting in at these top-secret Russian facilities had American flags, as is always the case.
In addition, a list was drawn up of 100 American specialists from 10 different US organisations who were entitled to conduct additional inspections at any time and without any warning.
All this lasted for 10 years. Under this agreement, 500 tonnes of weapons-grade uranium were removed from military circulation in Russia, which is equivalent to about 20,000 nuclear warheads.
The HEU-LEU programme has become one of the most effective measures of true disarmament in the history of humankind – I say this with full confidence.
Each step on the Russian side was closely monitored by American specialists, at a time when the United States limited itself to much more modest reductions of its nuclear arsenal, and did so on a purely goodwill basis.
Our specialists also visited enterprises of the US nuclear arms complex but only at their invitation and under conditions set by the US side.
As you see, the Russian side demonstrated absolutely unprecedented openness and trust. Incidentally – and we will probably talk about this later – it is also common
knowledge what we received from this: total neglect of our national interests, support for separatism in the Caucasus, military action that circumvented the UN Security Council, such as the bombing of Yugoslavia and Belgrade, the introduction of troops into Iraq and so on. Well, this is easy to understand:
once the condition of the nuclear complex, the armed forces and the economy had been seen, international law appeared to be unnecessary.
Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club
