Twelve years after Communist hard-liners tried to topple Mikhail Gorbachev, most Russians said if they could go back to that time, they would not support any major player in the drama that accelerated the Soviet collapse, a poll said Tuesday.

About 13 percent of respondents in the poll by the ROMIR agency said they would support then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who led the resistance to the coup attempt and gained wide popularity for his role. Ten percent said they would support the coup leaders, and 8 percent said they would back Gorbachev.

But most people — 54 percent — said they would support no one at all.

The events that began Aug. 19, 1991, weakened Gorbachev, causing the Soviet Union to crumble and leaving Yeltsin to lead the new Russia. He enjoyed broad support, but that faded during his two terms as president because of painful economic reforms that left many disillusioned about democracy and capitalism.

ROMIR said its poll of 1,500 people was conducted on Aug. 7-11 and had a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.

President Vladimir Putin, who was installed by Yeltsin in late 1999 and elected in 2000, ignored the coup attempt anniversary, visiting an air show outside Moscow. He then flew to the city of Kursk, about 285 miles south of Moscow, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of a tank battle that helped turn the tide against Nazi Germany in World War II.

Putin called the massive Kursk battle "a strong point in our history" and a source of "pride and patriotism."

"From here, our army moved only forward to Berlin. From the turning point of Kursk began the liberation of all Europe," he said.

Putin laid flowers at a monument commemorating the battle and placed a wreath at a memorial to seamen killed when the nuclear submarine Kursk, named after the city, sank in August 2000, killing all 118 aboard. He met with two of the victims' relatives, the Kremlin said.

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