MOSCOW – A day after unveiling dramatic new weapons – including anuclear-powered cruise missile – that sparked talk of a return to Cold Wartensions, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested he’d reverse thecollapse of the Soviet Union if he could.
Putin’s comments on the 1991 collapse of the USSR – which bound Russia andmany of its neighbors, while exerting influence in Eastern Europe andabroad for almost seven decades – came at a question-and-answer forum heldFriday in Kaliningrad. Taking questions from the audience, the Russianleader was asked what event in his nation’s history he would have liked tochange.
“The collapse of the Soviet Union,” Putin responded, according to theRussian news agency Tass.
Though a fringe idea in the West, regret about the collapse of the SovietUnion is not unusual in Russia – in fact, it is widespread. And withRussian elections just a week away, its a factor still worth watching.
The polling agency Levada Center has been asking Russians about their viewson the collapse of the Soviet Union since 1992. The most recent numbers,from a survey conducted in November 2017, show that 58 percent of Russiansregret the USSR’s collapse, while just over a quarter do not.
Despite all the changes in Russia over the past quarter century, thispublic regret has proved remarkably consistent. Only once since pollingbegan has the number of Russians saying they had regrets fallen below amajority – in December 2012, when 49 percent said they had regrets, thoughonly 35 percent said they did not.
The pro-Soviet sentiment peaked in 2000, just as Putin was just coming topower, with three-quarters of the country said they regretted the collapseof the USSR.
This sentiment is understandable when events are viewed from theperspective of the average Russian. Though the end of the Soviet Unionheralded the end of the Cold War tensions with the United States and itsallies, for many it was the start of years of political and economicuncertainty, as well as a diminished place for the Russian people on theworld stage.
Part of the regret may be from the chaotic manner in which the Soviet Unioncame to an end. The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said in 2016that the end of the union was due to “treachery.” Putin, formerly a KGBofficer stationed in East Germany, called the breakdown of the USSR as the”greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” in 2005, pointing to howmany Russian citizens wound up outside of Russian territory due to thecollapse.
But the sentiment appears broader than that: The Levada Center’s pollingfound that a majority of Russians felt bitterness over the end of theunified economic system, while a smaller group said that they felt Russiawas no longer a superpower.
Putin has been been leader of Russia in some form or another since 2000,making him the longest serving Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin. Thisweek, Putin used his annual address to announce a series of new weapontechnologies that he dubbed “invincible,” including nuclear-poweredmissiles that would be difficult for conventional missile defense systemsto combat.
Thursday’s speech marked a new low in U.S.-Russia relations in thepost-Cold War period, experts argue. Some analysts say that while Russiaalready had weapons that could overwhelm U.S. missile defenses if needed,the public announcement of these weapons was likely designed to rally adomestic base ahead of the March 18 election.
Putin is easily expected to win the election, with a poll conducted lastweek giving him almost 70 percent – almost ten times the share of the voteof his nearest rival, a candidate from the Communist Party.
Despite his regret about the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin told theaudience on Friday he wouldn’t want to live in any other period than thecurrent. Asked about his dreams for the future, the Russian president said:”I want our country to be successful, powerful, stable, balanced andlooking ahead.” – Washington Post