Baltic States – CIS, Direct Speech, Latvia, Legislation, Russia

Judging by the current events, for all these years Putin remained under the influence of a notion that there are enemies all around him, and that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major catastrophe. At the time he cooperated with the West, he was still holding these views, which eventually led to a halt in the relations between Russia and the West and Russia is now inevitably turning into an outcast, Vatolin indicated.

"Valdimir Putin has a concept of a well-off Russia, which unfortunately "de facto" turned out to be inadequate," the publicist said. On the other hand, Putin has an enormous desire to remain in power at any cost.

Nevertheless, "compared to senile Soviet secretaries general or the drunken [former President Boris] Yeltsin, of course, Putin seems steady and valiant. He does not drink, he works intensely. These are important qualities for a state official," Vatolin stressed.