Please, my dear Russian friends; don't fall in an other American trap which consist of dividing others' leadership to keep running better the great US hegemony. The tandem Putin-Medvedev function perfectly well; keep it that way. Make Russia a good example and ignore those greedy globalization's capitalists who don't care about the Russian, the American or European people. All, they want is controlling Russia's huge natural resources and imposing the American way of life to all of us. So far they have succeeded rather well. Why should they change. Hillary Clinton is nothing else but a marketing agent... Sorry Future Generations. Sincerely. Jean-Claude Meslin

Hillary Clinton’s comment is nothing short than a diplomatic blunder of the first order ! It is embarrassing for the Secretary of State of the United States to state her preference of President Medvedev over Prime Minister Putin in public. For starters, her counterpart is not President of Russia but Russia's foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, perhaps the most impressive politician in Europe today. Second, I am not quite sure what Secretary Clinton means by President Medvedev is ‘Modern’? Does she mean that he is young and cool, bookish? If this is what she means by Modern, what about her? Speaking Russian leaders as modern or not modern is strange metaphor in our age where the United States is living under the crises of Post-industrial, post-Modern virtual economy. As for President Dmitry Medvedev, I am not sure this endorsement helps him. It is great that Russia and the U.S are warming toward each other; I am not sure that playing up President Dmitry Medvedev against Prime Minister Putin is the way to go about improving relations between the United States and Russia

Which Russian leader do you prefer? I would've thought that would be the kind question you don't answer so that you don't offend anyone. Personally, I like Gorbachev and Medvedev, but don't know enough about Putin to have a firm opinion about him. Obviously he did the world a great service by stabilizing his country; this not only gave us a Russia with more to contribute, but it also ensured Russia's nuclear arms didn't get into the wrong hands. This certainly justifies some amount of the heavy handedness he displayed, but I don't know enough to say whether or not all of those controversial actions were plausibly necessary. There are some things Putin is blamed for that probably were the sole doing of people lower down on the totem pole. Russia's rampant corruption leads me to suspect that. Putin obviously has sharper edges than Medvedev does, but I am cautiously optimistic about his character. My doubts about him, to the extent to which they exist, are of his commitment to freedom and self-determination in the individual and national senses. As a disclaimer, I know my own country is far from innocent on those counts. I would like to think were getting better, but we have a long way to go.

William of the USA “Which Russian leader do you prefer? I would've thought that would be the kind question you don't answer so that you don't offend anyone.” I agree with you but in the case of the United States and Russian leaderships, their relationship has tactical and diplomatic Importance. Russian leaders are elected by Russian citizens and American leaders are elected by American leaders. I have not read once Russian leaders speaking about their likes and dislikes of American leaders! On the other, first, President Obama and now his Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, could not refrain from publicly stating which Russian leader they do prefer to do business with and which one they do not like or consider not modern! This way of conducting foreign police is not only not productive but it reflects poor judgment and lack of diplomatic skills, in my view.

i think good relationship betwen usa and russaia will be very usefull for the whole worlds also this will support the peacefull between the east and the west

The SAGA of Hillary and the great Russian bear continues. She continues to tickle the old bear behind the ears and rub his head. The old bear still just lays there and pretends to be asleep. Is this vicious old bear playing Hillary, or is Hillary playing the old bear? Looks like the old bear is starting to like her and may want to share what is in her picnic basket. What will be the final outcome? Will Hillary have a new TEDDY BEAR or will the big bad bear roar loudly and scare her away?

William of the USA What is freedom? You say you don't know much about Putin and suspect he is not a supporter of freedom and self determination. Freedom costs money. Poor people are not free. In times of problems then freedom needs to be limited. It happens everywhere. In the US after 11/9 freedoms were drastically changed and limited in the interests of the situation. In Russia, since they have been a democratic country they have had to deal with economic hardship as bad as the great depression was for the west last century, and the breakup of a republic that had an effect on industry that was in many ways comparable to the Nazi invasion of 1941. Companies that made products suddenly found their factories were in a new country, or the design bureau was in another state, or the vast majority of components they use to build their product are now made in different countries. Particularly those countries that want to join NATO are suddenly hostile to Russia because Russia is the Soviet Union... just like Britain is England and the US is Washington DC. In a nut shell Russia has lots of problems and human rights are not high up on the list because there are a lot more problems that need to be dealt with before such niceties need attention.