Moscow. (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that the collapse of the USSR is "a national tragedy of an enormous scale."
"I believe ordinary citizens of the former USSR and the current CIS countries did not benefit from it. It created a lot of problems for people," Putin said while meeting with his campaign representatives in Moscow on Thursday.
The collapse of the USSR is, however, now history, Putin said.
"Today, we need to look at the reality we live in. We can't just look back and complain about it," he said.
"There are some positive things about the situation we are in too," Putin said. He believes that one of these things is that "Russia is no longer 'a milk cow' for everyone."
"We fulfil our partners' requirements, taking their interests into account, and we are entitled to demand that they take our interests into account as well," he said.