PUTIN COMMEMORATES VICITMS OF POLITICAL REPRESSION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 005226 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/31/2017 TAGS: PGOV PINR SOCI RS SUBJECT: PUTIN COMMEMORATES VICITMS OF POLITICAL REPRESSION Classified By: POLOFF Bob Patterson. Reason: 1.4 (d). Summary -------------- ¶1. (SBU) On October 30, President Putin paid an unprecedented visit to the Butovo firing range, on the fringes of Moscow where, from August 1937 to October 1938 about 30 thousand persons were executed by Stalin's regime. Putin's visit marked the seventieth anniversary of the "Day of Memory of the Victims of Political Repressions;" the beginning of the peak of the purges. While some commentators questioned Putin's sincerity and ascribed the motivation for his visit to the Duma election campaign, others took heart in the fact that he had made the visit at all, and were struck by the evident sincerity of his reaction to what he saw at Butovo. End summary. Multiple Commemorations -------------- ¶2. (U) The seventieth anniversary of the "Day of Memory for the Victims of Political Repressions" was marked throughout Russia on October 29 - 30. The first day of the commemoration here saw a twelve-hour reading of the names of some of the victims at the Solovetskiy stone on Lubyanka Square in front of KGB, now FSB, headquarters. Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, members of Memorial, and many others participated in the reading, which received prominent television and newspaper coverage. ¶3. (U) On October 30, commemorations in which the Public Chamber participated were staged both at Lubyanka Square and at Butovo. About one thousand largely elderly persons attended. Many carried signs bearing the names of camps or places of execution where their relatives or loved ones had perished or been incarcerated. Public Chamber Secretary Velikhov officiated at the ceremony, which saw speeches by journalist Nikolay Svanidze, Public Chamber member Yelena Zelinskaya, Duma Deputy Slomin, and others. Many of the speakers used the occasion to lobby for the passage of an amendment to the law "On the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Political Repressions," which would entitle victims or members of their families to monetary compensation for the crimes committed against them. (To date, about 434 thousand citizens have been found by a panel established by the law to be victims. Of that number, about 10 thousand were at that time children in camps, prison, or in exile together with their parents.) Later on the same day, the pro-Kremlin youth group "Nashi," and members of Other Russia also staged their own commemorations at Lubyanka Square. Putin at Butovo -------------- ¶4. (SBU) On the same day, Putin, in the company of Patriarch Aleksiy, paid tribute to the victims at the Butovo firing range, where almost 30 thousand persons had been executed in 1937 - 1938. This was the first time that Putin had participated in such a commemoration, and his presence was variously ascribed to everything from the fact it was the seventieth anniversary of the peak of the purges to the Duma election campaign. Evening news film footage showed the President evidently moved by the commemoration. After a visit to a Russian Orthodox church at the range, Putin and Aleksiy laid flowers at an immense cross that had been carved at the Solovetsk Monastery, which was part of the gulag during the purges, and transported by river to Butovo last summer. In subsequent remarks Putin, significantly, noted that such "tragedies" occur when "ideas are thought to be more important than basic values: human life, and the rights and freedoms of human beings," an implicit condemnation of the Soviet regime. Putin also traced the beginning of the purges to Lenin, noting that they had begun at the time of the civil war. ¶5. (C) Putin's own professional background made his visit to Butovo significant. Lukin told the press that he had urged the President to attend, and noted that Putin, as head of the successor state of the Soviet Union, had a moral obligation to do so. Political commentator Svetlana Babaeva agreed that Putin was genuinely affected by his visit and noted that expressions of strong feelings are more and more a staple of his presidency as it comes to a close, whether it be a speech in Munich or a visit to Butovo. Babaeva, who had covered Putin at the October 27 - 28 EU - Russia Summit, described the President as openly struggling to contain his emotions as speaker after EU speaker noted pointedly and with evident lack of regret that Portugal would be the "last EU Summit" with Putin. The pressures of succession, the relative freedom of speech that comes with high popularity ratings and the rapidly approaching end of his term would probably mean a MOSCOW 00005226 002 OF 002 more emotional Putin, Babaeva thought. Burns