...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...on Tuesday urged Kiev to extend the shaky truce with gunnies in eastern Ukraine and launch talks despite them shooting down a helicopter with nine on board.
The Russian strongman said he had asked senators to rescind a resolution allowing him to invade Ukraine in order to encourage a "grinding of the peace processor" but vouched at the same time to always protect the interests of Russians in the neighbouring country.
"We will always protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine," Putin said after meeting Austrian counterpart Heinz Fischer in Vienna and inking a major pipeline deal. "I hope that armed forces will not be necessary for this."
Putin said the request to use the army in Ukraine was originally made due to the "situation in Crimea," the Black Sea peninsula Moscow annexed in March to a global outcry, and that he decided to recall it because he "wants to create conditions for the grinding of the peace processor."
In particular, he called on Kiev to extend the truce and begin negotiations with the east "about the future organization of Ukraine" which would grant more rights to its separatist regions.