Photo: top09.cz
The MP and TOP 09 candidate to the European Parliament commented on the Russian presidential election on the programme Events, Comments. According to Kolář, the Kremlin chief needs to continue to consolidate his position and needs to communicate to the West that he has broad and strong support in the Russian population. That is why elections have been rigged in the past and today, he said.
"He needs to define himself against the West, he needs to communicate to the West that he has broad and strong support in the Russian population," said Ondřej Kolář (TOP 09), deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee for European affairs.
Kolář said the Kremlin chief needs to continue to strengthen his position - even after the aggression in Ukraine or the earlier invasion of Georgia. "He needs to define himself against the West, he needs to communicate to the West that he has broad and strong support in the Russian population. This is also why elections have been rigged in the past, and why turnout figures are inflated."
Putin is in this respect a man who makes no secret of his ambition to restore "the forgotten glory of the Soviet Union", Kolář added. "Vladimir Putin does not respect the rules, he does not respect the international order, he does not respect any international principles of the functioning of states at all," he listed. Thus, the Russian leader wants to show the population that he has been trusted.
"I think we will see another escalation in the near future and it will depend on how we approach it," Kolář says. "Whether we continue to dither, or whether we finally find the courage and strength to confront Vladimir Putin with all that is needed," he concluded on the show Events, comments.
top09.cz/gnews.cz-JaV_07
