President Vladimir Putin, using Cold War rhetoric, accused foreign governments on Wednesday of sponsoring his opponents in next month's election to weaken Russia and carry out "dirty tricks" against it.Putin warned that victory for his United Russia party in the December 2 parliamentary election was the only guarantee that the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s would not return. "Unfortunately there are still those people in our country who still slink through foreign embassies ... who count on the support of foreign funds and governments but not the support of their own people," Putin told thousands of cheering supporters at a raucous pro-Kremlin rally.
These political enemies, he added, wanted to divide Russia. "They need a weak and feeble state. They need a disorganized and disoriented society, a split society, so that they can carry out their dirty tricks behind its back."