Putin's government is out to bury him and Putin likes him? You've got one warped sense of reality.
Putin is a product of the KGB...
Putin went overboard in the last year praising communism and stalinism and what not. After the 60th Anniversary of the Great Patriotic War, where Hammer and Sickle flags were on display, Putin needed something to take the "Putin is a Communist dictator" heat off of him.