Putin did not voice support for bringing back Stalingrad – spokesman

(Interfax – Moscow, June 9, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin has not voiced his preferences and has not specified whether he supports the idea of renaming Volgograd Stalingrad or stands for keeping its name, presidential spokesman Dmitriy Peskov has said.

“Answering a question from veterans in Normandy, Putin said that changing the name of a city or a settlement is outside his domain,” Peskov told Russkaya Sluzhba Novostey [Russian News Service] on Monday [9 June].

“Keeping answering a veteran’s persistent question that this is more than an issue of distributing powers, this is an issue concerning the whole generation of veterans, the president said: ‘Look, I cannot make a decision like this on my own, but there is a procedure: in case of a referendum, this issue can be resolved’,” Peskov added.

According to him, mass media did not take account of all the details of the situation in which the conversation with the veterans took place.

Meanwhile, Ella Pamfilova, Russian human rights commissioner, said on Monday [9 June] that the issue of renaming Volgograd Stalingrad should be approached with great care and can be resolved at an all-Russia referendum.