...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...says, arguing that only dialogue without preconditions can resolve the crisis.
If it was Vladivostok or Khabarovsk being threatened it would be a different story. Blagoveshchensk, maybe not.
The Korean Peninsula was "balancing on the brink of a large-scale conflict", Putin wrote in an article to be published on Friday before a summit of BRICS economies to be held in China on Sunday.
"Russia believes that the policy of putting pressure on Pyongyang to stop its nuclear missile programme is misguided and futile," he wrote in the article sent to media in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - the BRICS member states.
"The region's problems should only be settled through a direct dialogue of all the parties concerned without any preconditions. Provocations, pressure and militarist and insulting rhetoric are a dead-end road."