Putin: sending tanks to Prague in 1968 was a mistake

The Soviet Union's decision to send tanks to Hungary and Czechoslovakia to crush mass protests during the Cold War was a mistake, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday, while attending an economic forum in Vladivostok.

When asked about perceptions of Russia as a colonial power due to Moscow's decision to send tanks to Budapest in 1956 and to Prague in 1968, the Russian head of state replied “it was a mistake”, adding that it was not right to do anything in foreign policy that harms the interests of other nations.

The Kremlin chief, whose decision to send tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 unleashed the biggest war in Europe since WWII, also said that Russia had provided aid to other countries but had never been a coloniser.