Russia Youth Group and Putin Distance Themselves From (Norwegian) Killer’s Compliments

[pampango]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/world/europe/26russia.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

A Russian youth group and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin strove on Monday to distance themselves from positive references to them in the manifesto written by Anders Behring Breivik, the avowed anti-immigrant extremist who is the lone suspect in the mass killings in Norway.

The author at one point asks rhetorically, “Name one living person you would like to meet?” The answer is “The Pope or Vladimir Putin.” Mr. Putin was described as “a fair and resolute leader worth of respect” by the author, who also wrote: “I am unsure at this point whether he has the potential to be our best friend or our worst enemy.”

Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, cautioned in comments quoted by Kommersant newspaper that Mr. Breivik “is the devil incarnate, absolutely mad. No matter what he wrote or said, this is the delirium of a madman.”

Elsewhere, the manifesto suggested that in a first phase of forming a purely conservative and white Europe, Western Europeans should create “cultural conservative student organizations” to propagate the new ideology. “This movement should be somewhat like the equivalent of Russia’s Nashi movement,” the document says.