Putin - what is he? News just said he said "the fall of S U a catastrophe"

[oscar111]

S U is soviet union.

I thought Putin was a reliable market economy person. Now he sounds like the opposite. What is he?

If he revives the SU, our Pentagon spending will skyrocket.

[evlbstrd]

1. Former KGB. n/t

[MidwestTransplant]

2. You silly. The President looked into his soul and found a good man.

You must be reading the headline wrong.

[bennywhale]

4. Putin is a mass murderer

1/4 of the chechen population has been killed in the war with Russia in the last ten years.

I'll repeat that 1/4 of the population of chechnya has been killed in the war with Russia in the past ten years.

Equate that to population of America and imagine what the chechens think of him.

He's also started arresting all the owners of the oil companies in Russia and turning them back over into state control

[jeff30997]

3. An evil slimy opportunist.

[oscar111]

6. Original Post Person again: pls tell me his stand on economics, not other

things, however vivid they might be.

is putin a market person or a soviet person?

If he revives the SU, our military budget will baloon wildly.

[aneerkoinos]

7. Putin

Is nationalistic strong-man, "just what Russians want". And isn't democracy about people getting the kind of leader they want? ;)

What comes to economy, he's non-ideological pragmatist. If robber oligarchs get too uppity in the political arena and especially plan to give control of Russian oil to foreigners, it's jail and property nationalized (with legal technicalities and front companies and not openly, because he thinks it's in Russias interests to be in WTO).

No, SU is not going to be revived. At least by Putin.

[salvorhardin]

5. You may wish to read

this article that appeared in The Atlantic earlier this year.
http://www.ocnus.net/cgi-bin/exec/view.cgi?archive=63&num=16286