On the opposite side, supporting Bessarabia, were Nicolai N. Durnovo, writer and publisher, Sergei Witte, former Russian prime-minister, General Kuropatkin, former war minister of Russia, Leon Casso, minister of education of the Russian Empire in 1910–1914, writer Danilevski, journalist Tikhomirov. Sotov, correspondent of the Russian journal "Sovremennye zapiski" in Berlin (1921), and a declared adversary of the Union of Bessarabia with Romania, nevertheless in his articles with regard to the portrayal of the events and blamed the forced Russification in the Bessarabia's past for the post-1918 situation: