I am not ashamed that the president of my country – is the smallest president in the world – barely 160 cm [5’3”] tall. Not by height is the greatness of a person determined. I was, of course, ashamed for those journalists who in a fit of sleazy sycophancy compared Putin with Peter I. (Lord! How can the oh-so mediocre Putin possibly compare with Peter the Great!). I’m not even ashamed when Putin demonstratively displays his Patek Philippe watch for 60 or 70 thousand euros – let him! After all, there are people who pay more attention to expensive toys than to acts and deeds.

But I am terribly ashamed for the top leadership of Russia, when it behaves itself on the international arena insolently, stupidly, short-sightedly, and to the detriment of my country. Over the past 8 years of the rule of this leadership Russia has, it seems, not a single friend left. All around along the perimeter – nothing but enemies. The putino-medvedevs rail particularly loudly in relation in the countries of the former socialist camp. The recent manifestation of the stupid policy of Russia – Medvedev’s letter to the president of Ukraine with respect to, as Medvedev writes, «the so-called holodomor» [the artificial famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, caused by forced requisitions of food by the Soviet authorities, which led to millions of deaths in peacetime and is regarded by some as a planned genocide of the Ukrainian peasantry–Trans.]