Soviet Army soldiers sit on their tanks in front of the Czechoslovak radio station building in central Prague, August 21, 1968. Portal/Libor Hajsky ACKNOWLEDGES LICENSE RIGHTS
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, Sept 12 (Portal) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the Soviet Union’s decision to send tanks to Hungary and Czechoslovakia to crush mass protests during the Cold War was a mistake.
“It was a mistake,” Putin said when asked about the perception of Russia as a colonial power due to Moscow’s decision to send tanks to Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968.
“It is not right to do anything in foreign policy that harms the interests of other peoples,” said Putin, who sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in 2022, triggering the largest land war in Europe since World War II.
Putin said the United States was making the same mistakes as the Soviet Union. He said Washington had “no friends, only interests.”
The Hungarian uprising of 1956 was crushed by Soviet tanks and troops. At least 2,600 Hungarians and 600 Soviet soldiers died in the fighting.
The Prague Spring of 1968 ended when Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. According to Czech historians, about 137 Czechs and Slovaks died in the invasion.
Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan
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