Solzhenitsyn says NATO ``like Hitler'' in Yugoslavia
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn Wednesday compared NATO to German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler over its bombing campaign in Yugoslavia.
``I see no difference in the behavior of NATO and Hitler. It is the same,'' Interfax news agency quoted Solzhenitsyn as saying.
``I don't know the way to resolve the Yugoslav problem but I see that...for the third month before the eyes of the whole world a European country is being destroyed,'' he said.
Solzhenitsyn, whose ``Gulag Archipelago'' and other works exposed the cruelty of the Soviet regime and Josef Stalin's labor camps, accused NATO of trying to dominate the world.
``NATO wants to establish its order in the world, and it needs Yugoslavia simply as a pretext -- let's punish Yugoslavia and the whole planet will tremble,'' he was quoted as saying.
Russians across the political spectrum from communists to liberals have criticised NATO's bombing campaign against their Slavic, Orthodox Christian brethren in Yugoslavia.
But Moscow has also been leading diplomatic efforts to end the Kosovo crisis.
Solzhenitsyn, 80, is well known for his conservative, Slavophile views. Once hailed by the West for his stand against totalitarian Communism, he has become a fierce critic of Western materialism and liberal ideology.
Like an Old Testament prophet, he also fulminates against post-Soviet Russia's economic reforms, saying they have created a selfish, spiritually empty society. He harks back to a patriarchal social order based on Christian values.
Interfax also quoted Solzhenitsyn as criticising the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague for indicting Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic over his actions in Kosovo. He said the court was biased and did what it was told by the politicians.
Solzhenitsyn said he had no criticism of Russia in its efforts to mediate a settlement in Kosovo, though he said the West seemed to be exploiting Moscow's Balkans envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin for its own purposes.
``I have no other reproach against Russia. She can do nothing now. Russia is completely powerless,'' Solzhenitsyn said.