Is the US an evil empire, fermenting trouble wherever it can? Vladi thinks so.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of stirring up protests against his 12-year rule and said foreign countries were spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence Russian elections, reports Reuters.
Putin said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had encouraged Kremlin opponents by criticizing the vote.
"She set the tone for some opposition activists, gave them a signal, they heard this signal and started active work," Putin told supporters as he laid out plans for his campaign to return to the presidency in a March election.
Citing the examples of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution and the removal of governments in Kyrgyzstan -- also a fellow former Soviet republic -- that were accompanied by bloodshed, he said Western nations were spending heavily to foment political change in Russia.
"Pouring foreign money into electoral processes is particularly unacceptable," said Putin. "Hundreds of millions are being invested in this work. We need to work out forms of protection of our sovereignty, defense against interference from outside."
"What is there to say? We are a big nuclear power and remain so. This raises certain concerns with our partners. They try t o shake us up so that we don't forget who is boss on our planet," Putin said.
So I guess he has discounted the possibility that they are sick of him also.
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