Excerpts from Putin's address

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 429.

President Putin addressed the Russian nation on television on Saturday. Excerpts from his remarks:

It's difficult to speak, and it's bitter. A terrible tragedy has occurred in our land.

Over all these last few days, each of us has suffered profoundly and experienced in our hearts everything which happened in the Russian town of Beslan, where we came up against not just murderers, but people who used their weapons against defenceless children. And today, I am addressing first and foremost, with words of support and sympathy, those people who lost the dearest thing in life - their children. I am asking you to remember all those who died at the hands of terrorists in the last few days. Russia's history has seen many tragic pages and grave ordeals. Today we are living in conditions which have emerged following the break-up of a vast great state, a state which unfortunately turned out to be unable to survive in the context of a rapidly changing world. But despite all the difficulties, we have managed to preserve the core of thecolossus which was the Soviet Union. And we called the new country the Russian Federation. We all expected changes, changes for the better. But we have turned out to be absolutely unprepared for much that has changed in our lives...