Gorbachev supports Putin’s show of power

? Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, whose reforms played a major role in freeing the Soviet Union from totalitarianism, defended authoritarian moves by Russian President Vladimir Putin as necessary “to prevent the disintegration of the country.”

Putin has chosen “to use certain methods : that were even authoritarian to some extent,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner said in a recent interview. “But even though he used those methods sometimes, he continued to have the same goals – the goals of moving toward democracy, toward market economics.”