VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the Soviet Union’s decision to send tanks into Hungary and Czechoslovakia to crush mass protests during the Cold War was a mistake.
“It was a mistake,” Putin said when asked about perceptions of Russia as a colonial power due to Moscow’s decision to send tanks into Budapest in 1956 and into Prague in 1968.
The 1956 Hungarian Uprising was crushed by Soviet tanks and troops. Many people were killed in Budapest.
The 1968 Prague Spring was ended when Soviet forces invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
Putin in 2022 sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, triggering the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two.
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)