– I did not doubt the reaction in Dagestan and not in the whole country, Putin said in connection with his meeting during the day with Sergei Melikov, who leads the Caucasian sub-republic.
The statement was broadcast on Russian television on Wednesday. It revealed that Putin’s words were a response to a claim by Melikov, in which he stated that there was “not a single person in Dagestan who did not support the decisions made by the leadership of the Russian Federation” during the uprising.