[Finalapproach29er]

This can't be right;Bush looked into his buddy's eyes and saw a "good man".

Reagan was never duped like this. I miss him.

[spetznaz]

Let us see who will win the race. Will it be:

a) Russia turning into the USSR?

Or;

b) The USA turning into the USSA (United Socialist States of America)?

My bet would be on the USA-USSA transition happening before any Soviet Bloc re-emergence.

[Mr. Mojo]

Not surprising. KGB thug, control freak, corrupt to the core. The guy's a commie through and through -- always has been, always will be.

[Destro]

Where is lamenting a disaster seen as supporting the USSR? The fall caused death and destruction and loss of populations and wealth for Russia. George Soros like spin on Putin's words by abcNews to make him look like Darth Vader. Just earlier the news was spinning that Putin made his enemies vanish when they were on vacation visiting a mistress or something. Something sinister is up here. I have had a few years experiance in the intel-info business and I can see an organized campagin being born a mile away...for what purpose? Who is looking to place a block between the Americans and Russians?

[GOP_1900AD]

Showing true colors. What can be seen by looking into his eyes *now* ?

[MarMema]

Putin quotes...

"Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains."

"History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior."

Most of the people posting here watch CNN too much instead of trying to figure things out for themselves. The great majority of them have never even been to Russia, but feel obliged to put down the country and her people at every opportunity. Must be the public school syndrome rearing it's ugly head again.

[VOA]

Putin Laments Death of the Soviet Union

Show trials, gulags, getting grins watching news-reels of scared American children
practicing "duck and cover"...
ah, those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end...

(end sarcasm and lyric hijacking)

[Defender2]

Just go's to show you, once a Communist, Always a Communist
(Putin), and adds strength to the old saying, "leopards can't change their spots"!!!!

[gipper81]

One of the things that always strikes contemporary visitors to Russia is the lack of monuments to the victims of Stalin's execution squads and concentration camps. There are a few scattered memorials, but no national monument or place of mourning. Worse, fifteen years after glasnost, ten years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been no trials, no truth commissions, no government inquiries into what happened in the past, and no public debate whatsoever. This was not always the case: during the 1980s, when glasnost was just beginning in Russia, gulag survivors' memoirs sold millions of copies, and a new revelation about the past could sell out a newspaper. But more recently, history books containing similar "revelations" are badly reviewed or ignored. The president of Russia is a former KGB agent, who describes himself as a "Chekist," using the word for Lenin's political police.

The reasons for this are not hard to fathom. Life is genuinely difficult in Russia today, and most Russians, who spend all of their time trying to cope, do not want to discuss the past. The Stalinist era was a long time ago, and a great deal has happened since it ended. Post-Soviet Russia is not the same as post-Nazi Germany, where the memories of the worst atrocities were still in people's minds. The memory of the camps is also confused, in Russia, by the presence of so many other atrocities: war, famine, and collectivization. Why should camp survivors get special treatment? It is further confused by the link made, in some people's minds, between the discussion of the past that took place in the 1980s, and the total collapse of the economy in the 1990s. What was the point of talking about all of that, many people said to me: it got us nowhere.

But the most important explanation for the lack of debate is not the fears and anxieties of the ordinary Russian, but the power and prestige of those now ruling the country. In December 2001, on the tenth anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, thirteen of the fifteen former Soviet republics were run by former communists, as were many of the satellite states. To put it bluntly, former communists have no interest in discussing the past, it tarnishes them, undermines them, hurts their image as "reformers."

[source: Anne Applebaum, author of "Gulag: A History."]

[RusIvan]

here is the speech which was cited in ABC article. http://www.putin2004.ru/english/authorized
But I found nothing about "lamenting over Soviet Union".

As I ermember Putin once said that those who not regret USSr demise has no heart but those who want USSr to restore has no brains. If it is lamenting then I don't think so:)..

[AlbionGirl]

If Putin wants to lament the truly lamentable, then let him go here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38176-2004Feb12.html

[Pagey]

"Paging Hillary Clinton, Paging Hillary Clinton---Hillary, Please pick up the white courtesy phone at the front desk. Paging Hillary Clinton"!

[1rudeboy]

". . . only the elites and nationalists of the republics gained."

Nationalists? Sacre Bleu!

[montag813]

Putin Laments Death of the Soviet Union

What a inspiring vision of the future! Sounds like he should be running as a Democrat.