One of the most hilarious and scary headlines of the day has been that Putin mourned the downfall of the USSR in his “State of the Nation” address.

In his annual state of the nation address to parliament and the country’s top political leaders, Putin said the Soviet collapse was “a genuine tragedy” for Russians.

“First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” Putin said. “As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.

“The epidemic of collapse has spilled over to Russia itself,” he said, referring to separatist movements such as those in Chechnya.

Putin’s statements were some of his strongest language to date about the Soviet collapse and come a month before the nation celebrates the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, a conflict Russians call the “Great Patriotic War.”

He also noted Russia’s, uh, “independent path” toward democracy.

“Democratic procedures should not develop at the expense of law and order, or stability which has been so hard to achieve, or the steady pursuit of the economic course we have taken,” Putin said. “In this, I see the independent character of the democratic path we have chosen. Therefore, we will move forward taking into account our own internal circumstances but of course, based on the law and constitutional guarantees.”

Many will see these words and think, “Hey, he actually wants to create a centralized state at the expense of democracy, despite that he tells the United States differently!” Bingo, captain. However, Putin’s reason for explicitly bemoaning the lost empire has more to do with winning back the popularity he lost with the babushkas back in January.

The basic premise for this loss of popularity was that the government had decided to give pensions in the form of money instead of free services. The money, of course, was practically worthless when compared to the prices of the services offered (I believe one of the main complaints was over bus tickets). Eventually, Putin had to give in. But what does this have to do with the USSR in particular? Read this tidbit:

Opinion polls recently published show that some 60% of this group believe that the state????????s task is to provide for its citizens.
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Far from welcoming social security reform, the polls suggest that a third of Russians want a return to state planning, and only 10% think free enterprise should be a national priority.

The old pensioners are the ones who most remember the “glory days” of the USSR and would like to return to those times when Russia could provide better benefits and wield influence over poor neighor satellites. It is no surprise that Putin’s inability to handle the latter of those two as well has cost him quite a bit of popularity. Here is something I wrote back in February:

Putin actually is reaching out for support, but not inward. Much of Russia????????s past power has been derived from the Baltic and CIS states, and as a consequence, Putin must retain that in order to have his inner support. Without it, Russia will continually be marginalized, and in effect, so will he. The main problem with his foreign policy toward the ???????near-abroad,??????? as illustrated by this recent post on Russia-Latvia relations, is that instead of reaching out for mutually beneficial relationships, he makes threats and interferes in the respective sovereign country????????s affairs. He is masochistically pushing potential allies and resources away from Russia and toward Europe.

Will Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, etc, now that they are free to choose, take the side of a regime that only seeks to subvert them? Of course not. And the more Putin loses their favor, the more he loses favor from his own people.

Putin’s popularity before January was an incredibly high 78%, but immediately after the Orange Revolution and welfare reform, things started to take a nose dive.

“Nobody ever believed there could be so much social dissent about pensions, but ÄPutin’sÅ reputation could be seriously damaged or broken by 2006,” says Lilia Shevtsova, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Only two things have kept him going: ÄhighÅ oil prices and lack of alternatives. If people are unhappy, they start looking for alternatives,” she says.

Results released last week of a poll by ROMIR Monitoring, of 1,500 Russians in more than 100 cities, found that 49 percent agreed that current policies were leading to a “dead end.” Only 38 percent felt otherwise. That result is a turnaround from a year ago, when a similar poll found that just 29 percent agreed Russia was heading toward a “dead end,” while 53 percent agreed the country was on the right path.

As near as March, his numbers still haven’t recovered much. After having lost Eastern Europe almost entirely, and barely hanging on to Belarus with the rest of the world attacking it, he must look elsewhere where stability is strong. The last refuge for the Russian empire is Central Asia.

Our objectives on the international stage are very clear ???????? to ensure the security of our borders and create favourable external conditions for the resolution of our domestic problems. We are not inventing anything new and we seek to make use of all that European civilisation and world history has accumulated.

Also certain is that Russia should continue its civilising mission on the Eurasian continent. This mission consists in ensuring that democratic values, combined with national interests, enrich and strengthen our historic community.

We consider international support for the respect of the rights of Russians abroad an issue of major importance, one that cannot be the subject of political and diplomatic bargaining. We hope that the new members of NATO and the European Union in the post-Soviet area will show their respect for human rights, including the rights of ethnic minorities, through their actions.

So did Putin make this statement as a direct threat to the West and its principles? No, his track record already shows a steady decline in his upholding of democracy. But in Russia, for any president to have widespread popularity, he must have the support of the pensioners. These same people hold the USSR very dear to their nostaligic pensioner hearts, so a comment like this is more aimed at rallying some nationalism and positive points to his poll numbers than anything else. How is a man supposed to change the constitution and take a third term in 2008 if there isn’t widespread support for the move?