“Over the past more than a millennium, our statehood has survived different eras, including cruel invasions of enemies, fragmentation and tragedy of civil strife, but each such difficult period has invariably ended with the revival of the Fatherland.” This was stated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking of the 1160th anniversary of the origin of Russian statehood, the Kremlin website reports.
Among many names, Putin separately mentioned Nicholas II, Lenin and Stalin, because he hesitated whether to call their names at a solemn event in Veliky Novgorod.
“These and many of our other compatriots were large -scale, complex, sometimes contradictory historical personalities,” he said.
According to the President of Russia, some of them saw the future of the country in their own way.
“You know, I either entered this text, then crossed out names such as Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin. Apparently, there was not so much time from a historical point of view to give full objective assessments deprived of current political conjuncture. However, including, and most importantly, our whole people made Russia a great world power, ”Mr. Putin emphasized.