Video: Putin and Medvedev at the Yeltsin Memorial

The following news footage, which is refreshingly free of commentary, shows Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev attending the memorial service for Boris Yeltsin, who passed away one year ago today. According to news reports, Putin’s speech was largely full of platitudes for Yeltsin’s administration, yet there were some subtle messages asserting the new interpretation of Russia’s post-Communist years. Reuters reports “In a symbolic moment at the memorial ceremony, a military band played a few bars of the national anthem introduced by Yeltsin, then switched to the Soviet melody that Putin reinstated as Russia’s official anthem.” The “Nobel Prize” awarded to Putin casts the Yeltsin legacy in a very different light.