> wasn't
> a good part of Putin (and then Medvedev's) support due to their claim to
> be more interested in returning Russians to the secure days of the USSR,
> i.e. with more social safety net?
Russia has indeed expanded its welfare state, but my guess is the extraordinarily high popularity of Putin and now Medvedev reflects their success in transforming Russia into a developmental state. Putin and Medvedev are both pragmatic modernizers, through and through -- smart, tenacious, capable, and genuinely committed to electoral democracy and the transformation of Russia into a continental-sized version of Finland. Here's the blueprint, which has interesting parallels to many of the developmental states of today's global semi-periphery:
http://eng.kremlin.ru/speeches/2009/09/10/1534_type104017_221527.shtml
-- DRR