There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world, which seem to tend towards the same end, although they started form different points; I allude to the Russians and the Americans ... Their starting point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe. Alexis de Tocqueville, De la Democratie en Amerique
I’d like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family. Prince Philip, 1967
I’m glad I’m not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone’s tape-recording what you’re saying. Richard Nixon
No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture, in acts of courage. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s future, and we are all mortal. John F Kennedy
We are anxious to live in harmony with the Russian people. John F Kennedy
My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia for ever. The bombing begins in five minutes. Ronald Reagan, microphone test 1984
We've been saying Putin is a dictator for years who doesn’t care about the law. Garry Kasparov
Millions like me in Russia want a free press, the rule of law, social justice, and free and fair elections. My new job is to fight for those people and to fight for these fundamental rights. Garry Kasparov How Life Imitates Chess, 2007
US analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, in large measure a predicted reaction to the Bush administration’s militancy and aggressiveness. Noam Chomsky
Lenin and Trotsky, shortly after seizing state power in 1917, moved to dismantle organs of popular control, including factory councils and Soviets, thus proceeding to deter and overcome Socialist tendencies. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
Western leaders were completely untroubled by Stalin’s awesome crimes. Truman wrote for example that he liked and admired Stalin – he thought he was honest and clever and thought that he could deal with him. And Eisenhower and others agreed. Noam Chomsky, lecture London 1993, ‘500 Years of Western Imperialism’
As of today I am suspending the legislative, administrative and controlling functions of the parliament. Boris Yeltsin
You have no right to criticise Russia over Chechnya. Boris Yeltsin
The people are interested in getting their wages paid on time. They want electricity back into their homes. Many of them are disillusioned with democratic values. Don’t care about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, many other freedoms. Yevgeny Kiselyov, General Director NTV
Russia’s military operations ... are consistent with desire to regain its empire. Wikileaks US diplomatic cable 27th January 2006
There is no real rule of law and ... at any time anyone can be arrested or businesses destroyed. Wikileaks, US Secretary of State 6th December 2007
Russia to be a virtual Mafia state. Wikileaks, US diplomatic cable 8th February 2010
Russian democracy has disappeared and the government was now an oligarchy run by the security services. Wikileaks, US diplomatic cable 12th February 2010
We defended our great Soviet motherland and kept our independence. We are used to winning. It is in our blood. It is not just the way to win wars. In peacetime it will also help us. Vladimir Putin
In 1995, Russia virtually gave Chechnya de facto statehood and independence even though, de jure, it didn’t recognize Chechnya as an independent state. And I would like to emphasize strongly that Russia withdrew all of its troops, we moved the prosecutors, we moved all the police, dismantled all the courts, completely, one hundred per cent. Vladimir Putin
We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them. Vladimir Putin
Putin knew of terror bombings. Times online article March 2003
I’d been to a number of war zones before in my life, but I had never been in one as terrifying as Chechnya. Scott Anderson
The history of Chechnya is one of imperialism gone terribly wrong. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Chechens were among the few peoples to fend off Mongol conquerors, but at a terrible cost. Turks, Persians, and Russians sought to seize Chechnya, and it was finally absorbed into the Russian Empire in 1859. Stephen Kinzer
If the Russian people and the Russian elite remembered – viscerally, emotionally remembered – what Stalin did to the Chechens, they could not have invaded Chechnya in the 1990s, not once and not twice. To do so was the moral equivalent of postwar Germany invading western Poland. Very few Russians saw it that way – which is itself evidence of how little they know about their own history. Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History
Russia’s economy is out of control tonight and is causing an international financial crisis. Huge queues in Moscow, there is a run on the banks, the Ruble has lost nearly half its value and prices are soaring. BBC News August 1998
The one-time officer with the successor to the KGB fled to the UK where he became a fierce critic of the Kremlin and worked for security service MI6.
A public inquiry into the London death of the 43-year-old opens on Tuesday.
Mr Litvinenko’s widow says the inquiry will give people ‘a chance to understand who killed my husband.’
Marina Litvinenko says he blamed the Kremlin as he lay dying in hospital but Russia denies any involvement.
Her lawyer has described his murder as ‘an act of state-sponsored nuclear terrorism on the streets of London.’ BBC online article 27th January 2015, ‘Alexander Litvinenko killed on third attempt’
Once it was Chechnya, today it is the republic of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea that is the most explosive place in Russia – and in Europe. There are bomb attacks almost daily, shootouts between police and militants, tales of torture and of people going missing. BBC online article 24th November 2011, ‘Dagestan – the Most Dangerous Place in Europe’
American spies secretly intercepted communications between those involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko and provided the key evidence that he was killed in a Russian-backed ‘state execution’, The Telegraph can disclose.
The National Security Agency (NSA) obtained electronic communications between key individuals in London and Moscow from the time that the former spy was poisoned with radioactive material in central London. The evidence was passed to the British authorities.
A source familiar with the investigation confirmed the existence of American ‘intelligence material’. They said it would have been ‘inadmissible’ in court, but that the British authorities were ‘confident that this was a state execution’. Telegraph online article 23rd January 2015, ‘Litvinenko inquiry: the proof Russia was involved in dissident’s murder: National Security Agency (NSA) obtained communications between key individuals in London and Moscow from the time that Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive material’
Russian activists and journalists who get enough death threats and take them sufficiently seriously to hire bodyguards are also usually careful about what they ingest. Soon after the chess champion Garry Kasparov quit the sport to go into politics full time, in 2004, he hired a team of eight bodyguards, who not only accompanied him everywhere but also carried drinking water and food for Kasparov to eat at meals shared in public. Three years ago, Kasparov told me that what he liked most about foreign travel was being able to shed his bodyguards for a while. A year after that, threats drove him to leave Russia permanently. Masha Gessen, cited ‘Putin’s Russia: Don’t Walk, Don’t Eat, and Don’t Drink’ 28 May 2015