Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered a trademark robust response on Tuesday to proposals that the North Caucasus republics should be economically and socially separate entities from Russia, RIA Novosti reports.
"Those who are saying this should have something cut off of them," Putin said in an interview with Chechen media in connection with the 60th anniversary of the birth of Chechnya's first Kremlin-backed president, the late Akhmat Kadyrov.
"They don't know what they are talking about," he said, referring to unnamed politicians and political commentators.
"The moment a country starts to reject some problem territories is the beginning of the end of that country as a whole," he warned.
Putin slams supporters of North Caucasus separatism
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