Putin didn’t see partners for dialogue among opposition campaigners in December 2011 – Kudrin

Alexei Kudrin file photo

VLADIVOSTOK. April 26 (Interfax) – Vladimir Putin did not see partners for dialogue among opposition activists who organized rallies “For Fair Elections” in December 2011, said ex-finance minister and leader of the Civil Initiatives Committee Alexei Kudrin.

“I talked with him, at length. And I said that I would probably go to the rally on Sakharov Avenue. I won’t speak about what he said to me. But, at least, there were no bans whatsoever,” Kudrin said in a documentary, titled “President,” released on the Russia 1 television channel.

The rally “For Fair Elections,” organized on Sakharov Avenue on December 24 2011, was expected to be joined – for the first time – by people from the middle class who had never taken part in protests before, he said.

“I was trying to urge the leadership and Putin to find forms of a dialogue with people who cared for what was going around. But since all people mixed up very strongly with more radical structures and with nationalists, I later realized that Putin did not want to see and did not see representatives fit for dialogue there,” Kudrin said.

 

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