...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...has announced that he will attend the ceremony in Yerevan to commemorate the 1915 events.
According to a statement issued by the Russian Presidency, Putin told his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian by telephone on March 12 that he would join the commemoration ceremony scheduled for April 24 in Yerevan.
Armenia says up to 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians were killed in a genocide starting from 1915.
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
denies that the deaths amounted to genocide, saying the corpse count of Armenians killed during mass deportations has been inflated and that those killed in 1915 and 1916 were victims of general unrest during World War I.
Russia is among around 20 nations that recognise the killings as genocide.
News of Putin's call to Sarkisian comes as speculation that he is ill swirls online following his cancelation of a number of meetings.
Speaking to AFP, Putin's front man Dmitry Peskov dismissed the claims, ascribing media reports of the leader's ill-health to "March madness."
Armenia is Russia's most loyal ally in the Caucasus, but ties have been strained since January when a Russian serviceman killed a family of seven in Armenia, sparking mass protests.