Putin is frightening
June 4th, 2007
Gregory White from the Wall Street Journal was one of the western journalists invited to dinner with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday (dessert: wild-strawberry soup with vanilla ice cream). Putin’s threat to target strategic missiles on European targets understandably received considerable coverage, but I found some of his more offhand remarks more chilling.
From Monday’s Wall Street Journal (subscription probably required):
“I am an absolutely pure democrat. The real tragedy is that I am the only one. Elsewhere in the world there just aren’t any others,” he added sarcastically, cataloging human-rights abuses outside Russia. “Since Mahatma Gandhi died, there’s just nobody left to talk to,” he joked.