The tensions with former Soviet satellite states has saddened Soviet veterans, including Yakov Vinnichenko, who told Russia Today television he was involved in liberating concentration camps.

VOA: standard.2009.09.01

Very roughly speaking, and ignoring the rest of the former Soviet Union, Russia today is arguably where it might have been if it had avoided perestroika and the collapse of communism, choosing instead a Chinese path of strictly limited freedom.

ECONOMIST: The EU's relations with Russia are bad and may get worse

When critics had the temerity to point out that Welch had no proof of his allegation about the September jobs numbers, he reacted with sputtering indignation making me wonder how much GE under Welch was like the Soviet Russia that he sees in America today.

FORBES: Jack Welch: Pot Calling Kettle Black

Legislator Vladimir Ryzhkov agrees Russia today is not the Soviet Union, under which Party officials decided even such matters as whether to allow husbands and wives to divorce.

NPR: Russia Under Putin: Echoes of the Soviet Era