The official Russian government translation of Putin’s remark:
“Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.”
Putin’s remark in the original Russian language (with the source in the following url):
Прежде всего следует признать, что крушение Советского Союза было крупнейшей геополитической катастрофой века.
http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_53088/
The Russian language does not have words for “a” and “the.” Whether a speaker has said “a book” or “the book” must therefore be determined by context.
The word крупнейшей is in the grammatical form that Russian experts call a “simple superlative.” As a leading textbook notes, “The simple superlative does not show comparison, but rather indicates a high degree of the given quality.” That is why the correct translation is “a major catastrophe” rather than “the greatest” catastrophe". Putin clearly therefore did not say the Soviet collapse was “the greatest” geopolitical catastrophe.
There are enough troubling things about Mr. Putin’s recent behavior that there is no need to exaggerate, let alone to seriously mistranslate, things that he has said. Unfortunately, when one googles the alternate translations, the incorrect ones outweigh the correct ones by ten to one! This is probably because most people who quote Putin do not see the original Russian and probably do not speak Russian or don't speak it very well.
