The Hindu : Front Page : Putin warns against "doctrine of violence"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 10, 2005

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Front Page

Putin warns against "doctrine of violence"

Vladimir Radyuhin

Thanks wartime allies but emphasises Red Army's crucial role in defeating Nazi Germany 60 years ago

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday urged vigilance against new violence-preaching doctrines of the kind that plunged mankind into World War II.

Flanked by world leaders at the Red Square here, he thanked Russia's wartime allies — the United States, Britain, France and others — for their assistance but emphasised the Red Army's crucial role in defeating Nazi Germany 60 years ago. "The most cruel and decisive battles unfolded on the territory of the Soviet Union," he said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was among the 56 world leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Chinese President Hu Jintao, French President Jacques Chirac and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who gathered here to pay tribute to the unparalleled sacrifice and overwhelming contribution of the Soviet Union to the victory in World War II.

They watched a spectacular military parade, with a marchpast by soldiers dressed in World War II uniforms and continued with a ride by 3,000 Red Army veterans in trucks replicating wartime models.

In his keynote speech, Mr. Putin warned the world to watch out for "the emergence of new lethal doctrines ... that can become fertile soil for new threats. The lessons of the war send us the warning that indifference, temporising and playing accomplice to violence inevitably lead to terrible tragedies on a planetary scale."

The reference to "violence" rather than just "terrorism" clearly broadened the notion of new threats to cover the U.S.-led war against Iraq.

"We must defend a world order based on security and justice, on a new culture of mutual relations which do not allow any repetition of either Cold Wars or hot wars," Mr. Putin said.

In another jab at the U.S., Mr. Putin defended the right of nations to choose their path of development.

A bilateral meeting on Sunday between the Russian and U.S. Presidents was all warm hugs and broad smiles, but was clouded by an angry exchange on World War II. On a visit to Latvia on Saturday, Mr. Bush accused the Soviet Union of sharing the blame with Hitler's Germany for starting the war. Mr. Putin retorted in a speech that the Red Army was a liberator, not an oppressor.

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