indeed

Putin might be an ideological anti-communist but he too realizes that the Soviet Union is when Russia was the strongest and has a certain respect for it.

Heck, even in this article Luka is quoting Putin:

Our merit lies in the fact that, as President Putin once told me: ‘You’re doing great by preserving what you inherited from the Soviet Union’.”

Implying that Russia is suffering from not having preserved as much.