Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, the power company's Chief Executive Boris Kovalchuk, second right, and Energy Minister Alexander Novak, right, attend the a ceremony to put into operation Mayakovskaya and Talakhovskaya thermal power stations in the town of Gusev via a video link in Gusev, Russia, Friday, March 2, 2018. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) Right - Boris Kovalchuk, chairman of the board, Inter RAO - Engineering. (Alexei Druzhinin/Pool Photo via AP)
March 02, 2018 - 10:16 AM
MOSCOW - If he could go back in time, Vladimir Putin's mission would be to prevent the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
That's what he told a forum in the city of Kaliningrad on Friday. Taking questions from audience members, he was asked what occurrence in Russia he would have most liked to have prevented.
He replied "the disintegration of the Soviet Union," according to Russian news reports.
In 2005, Putin attracted wide attention when he said in a state-of-the-nation speech that the Soviet collapse was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."
Putin's comment Friday came a day after he announced that Russia had developed allegedly invincible new nuclear weapons, raising concerns of a new arms race like that of Soviet times.
News from © The Associated Press, 2018