Praise puts Putin in spot

Putin: ‘Resolute leader’

Moscow, July 26: A Russian youth group and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin strove today to distance themselves from positive references to them in the manifesto written by Anders Behring Breivik, the avowed anti-immigrant extremist who is the lone suspect in the mass killings in Norway.

Putin and the youth group Nashi, a pro-Kremlin organisation that has expanded quickly here over the past five years, were mentioned briefly in the 1,500 page document. It also quoted extensively from American bloggers and referenced a wide range of current and historical political figures in arguing that Europeans should reject multiculturalism and immigrants from the Islamic world.

The author at one point asks rhetorically, “Name one living person you would like to meet?” The answer is “The Pope or Vladimir Putin.” Putin was described as “a fair and resolute leader worth of respect” by the author, who also wrote: “I am unsure at this point whether he has the potential to be our best friend or our worst enemy.”

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, cautioned in comments quoted by Kommersant newspaper that Breivik “is the devil incarnate, absolutely mad. No matter what he wrote or said, this is the delirium of a madman”.

Elsewhere, the manifesto suggested that in a first phase of forming a purely conservative and white Europe, western Europeans should create “cultural conservative student organisations” to propagate the new ideology. “This movement should be somewhat like the equivalent of Russia’s Nashi movement,” the document says.