Vladimir Putin says he drove taxi for survival after collapse of Soviet Union

Putin also described for the first time how he was affected personally by the tough economic times that followed the Soviet collapse, when Russia suffered double-digit inflation.

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin has lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago as the demise of what he called "historical Russia". Putin, now the powerful leader in Russia, also said that the economic crisis that followed was so bad that he was forced to moonlight as a taxi driver.

Putin`s comments, released by state TV on Sunday, are likely to further fuel speculation about his foreign policy intentions among his critics, who accuse him of planning to recreate the Soviet Union and of contemplating an attack on Ukraine, a notion the Kremlin has dismissed as fear-mongering.

"It was a disintegration of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union," Putin said of the 1991 breakup, in comments aired on Sunday as part of a documentary film called "Russia. New History", the RIA state news agency reported.