Putin Cites Nazis in Veiled Criticism of U.S.

“We do not have the right to forget the causes of any war, which must be sought in the mistakes and errors of peacetime,” Mr. Putin said.
“Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing,” he said. “They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world.”

MSN 5/10/07: Did Putin speech link U.S., Nazi policies? (article at end)
NYT May 10, 2007
Putin Cites Nazis in Veiled Criticism of U.S.
Putin Is Said to Compare U.S. Policies to Third Reich
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW, May 9 — President Vladimir V. Putin obliquely compared the foreign policy of the United States to the Third Reich in a speech on Wednesday commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, apparently in an escalation of anti-American talk within the Russian government.
The comments were the latest in a series of sharply worded Russian criticisms of the foreign policy of the United States — on Iraq, missile defense, NATO expansion and, more broadly, United States unilateralism in foreign affairs.
Many Russians say the sharper edge reflects a frustration that Russia’s views, in particular opposition to NATO expansion, have been ignored in the West. Outside of Russia, however, many detected in the new tone a return to cold-war-style antagonism, emboldened by petroleum wealth.
Mr. Putin’s analogy was a small part of a larger speech, otherwise unambiguously congratulating Russian veterans of World War II, known here as the Great Patriotic War. Mr. Putin spoke from a podium in front of Lenin’s mausoleum on Red Square before troops mustered for a military parade.
Mr. Putin called Victory Day a holiday of “huge moral importance and unifying power” for Russia, and went on to enumerate the lessons of that conflict for the world today.
“We do not have the right to forget the causes of any war, which must be sought in the mistakes and errors of peacetime,” Mr. Putin said.
“Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing,” he said. “They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world.”
The Kremlin press service declined to clarify the statement, saying Mr. Putin’s spokesman was unavailable because of the holiday.
Sergei A. Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies, who works closely with the Kremlin, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Putin was referring to the United States and NATO. Mr. Markov said the comments should be interpreted in the context of a wider, philosophical discussion of the lessons of World War II. The speech also praised the role of the allies of the Soviet Union in defeating Germany.
“He intended to talk about the United States, but not only,” Mr. Markov said in reference to the sentence mentioning the Third Reich. “The speech said that the Second World War teaches lessons that can be applied in today’s world.”
The United States, Mr. Putin has maintained, is seeking to establish a unipolar world to replace the bipolar balance of power of the cold war era.
In a speech in Munich on Feb. 10, he characterized the United States as “One single center of power: One single center of force. One single center of decision making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign.”
The victory in World War II, achieved at the cost of roughly 27 million Soviet citizens, still echoes loudly in the politics of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Russia’s relations with the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
In his speech on Wednesday, Mr. Putin criticized Estonia, also indirectly, for recently relocating a monument to the Red Army in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, along with the remains of unknown soldiers buried there. Mr. Putin warned that such changes to war memorials was “sowing discord and new distrust between states and people.” The remarks were a nod to the protests in Russia and Estonia after the relocation of the Bronze Soldier memorial from the city center to a military cemetery.
In his Victory Day speech last May, Mr. Putin brushed on similar themes of the lessons of the war. Then, he spoke of the need to stem “racial enmity, extremism and xenophobia” in a possible reference to rising ethnic tensions inside Russia.
Victory Day has evolved into the principal political holiday in Russia, replacing the Soviet-era Nov. 7 celebration, Day of the Great October Socialist Revolution. That holiday was canceled under Mr. Putin and replaced with the Day of Accord, observing a 1612 uprising against Poland, celebrated on Nov. 4.

Did Putin speech link U.S., Nazi policies?
MSN Russian president makes blunt, vague references criticizing unilateralism
The Associated Press
Updated: 2:18 p.m. CT May 10, 2007
MOSCOW - Who was President Vladimir Putin talking about when he said the world faces threats to peace like those that led to World War II?
Putin’s statement at a Victory Day parade on Red Square on Wednesday was artfully phrased to be both blunt and vague — but political observers have little doubt he was criticizing the United States for “disrespect for human life, claims to global exclusiveness and dictate, just as it was in the time of the Third Reich.”
While Putin didn’t name any particular country in the speech marking the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany, the remarks echoed his increasingly strong criticism of the perceived U.S. domination in global affairs.
Political analysts close to the Kremlin say that Putin referred to the United States in his remarks, expressing Russia’s dismay at what it views as U.S. unilateralism in world affairs and disrespect for other countries’ interests.
“Hitler was striving for global domination, and the United States is striving for global domination now,” Sergei Markov, the Kremlin-connected head of the Moscow-based Institute for Political Research told The Associated Press. “Hitler thought he was above the League of Nations, and the United States thinks it is above the United Nations. Their action is similar.”
Relations between Russia and the United States have become increasingly tense amid U.S. criticism of the Kremlin for rolling back on democracy and Moscow’s complaints against U.S. plans to deploy missile defense sites in Europe close to its western borders. Moscow also frequently accuses Washington of meddling in what it considers its home turf by trying to take other ex-Soviet nations away from its orbit.
Markov said that while Putin sought to soften his remarks by avoiding a direct reference to the United States, he was undoubtedly was aiming at Washington. “Only the United States now is claiming global exclusiveness,” Markov said.
‘Claims to global exclusiveness’Shortly after his speech at the parade, Putin told veterans at a Kremlin reception that World War II showed “where militarist ambitions, ethnic intolerance and any attempts to recarve the globe are leading to.”
Markov saw that as another veiled reference to the United States.
“After the Cold War ended, the United States has initiated a new arms race,” fueling nuclear ambitions of many nations worldwide, he said.
“If a nation doesn’t have nuclear weapons, it risks being bombed like Yugoslavia or Iraq,” he said. “And if it does have nuclear weapons like North Korea, it faces no such threat.”
Gleb Pavlovsky, another political analyst with close Kremlin connections, said that Putin’s remarks reflected his “concern about the spreading of unilateralist approaches to global affairs.”
“The United States is trying to dominate the world ... and Russia takes a stance against such hegemony,” Pavlovsky said.
He added, however, that Putin was not referring exclusively to the United States when he mentioned a contempt for human life and claims at global domination, but also forces behind international terrorism and extremism.
“He was also referring to nations that support Islamic fundamentalism when he talked about claims to global exclusiveness,” Pavlovsky said.
Putin’s remarks reflect an increasingly assertive posture by Russia, which has regained its economic muscle thanks to a rising tide of oil revenue and sought to rebuild its military might eroded in the post-Soviet industrial demise.
Putin shocked Western leaders in February when he spoke at a security conference in Germany, bluntly accusing the U.S. of trying to force other nations to conform to its standards and warned that Russia would strongly retaliate to the deployment of the U.S. missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic