Sochi – Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied the existence of any plans to revive the Russian Empire, saying that Russia will develop only within its own borders.
“We will not promote Russian nationalism, and we do not intend to revive the Russian Empire,” Putin said in an interview with the French media.
The Russian leader offered his remarks in response to reporters’ request to comment on his words that the collapse of the Soviet Union “was the worst geopolitical disaster of the 20th century.” The correspondents also asked Putin: “What do you propose: Russian nationalism, or the restoration of the Russian Empire to its previous borders?”
“We want to develop our country within our own borders, of course. But – and this is very important – like other countries in other parts of the world, we want to use modern policies to improve our competitive advantage, including economic integration. This is what we are doing in the post-Soviet space within the Customs Union and now also within the Eurasian Union,” he said.
“What did I mean when I said that the Soviet Union’s collapse was one of the largest humanitarian – above all humanitarian – disasters of the 20th century? I meant that all the citizens of the Soviet Union lived in a union state irrespective of their ethnicity, and after its collapse 25 million Russians suddenly became foreign citizens,” Putin said.
“It was a huge humanitarian disaster. Not a political or ideological disaster, but a purely humanitarian upheaval. Families were divided; people lost their jobs and means of subsistence, and had no means to communicate with each other normally. This was the problem,” the Russian president said.
