It's pretty well established that Vladimir Putin wants to bring back the Soviet Union; his actions (Medvedev? Who?) in Georgia point pretty strongly to that. In true Soviet style, he's trying to blame the U.S. for the Russian invasion:
MOSCOW: As Russia struggled to rally international support for its military action in Georgia, Vladimir Putin, the country's paramount leader, lashed out at the United States on Thursday, contending that the White House may have orchestrated the conflict to benefit one of the candidates in the American presidential election.
Putin's comments in a television interview, his most extensive to date on Russia's decision to send troops into Georgia earlier this month, sought to present the military operation as a response to brazen, cold war-style provocations by the United States.
. . .
On Thursday, Putin, now prime minister, also said Russian defense officials believed that United States citizens were in the conflict area supporting the Georgian military when it attacked the separatist region of South Ossetia.
"Even during the cold war, during the time of tough confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we have always avoided direct clashes between our civilians, let alone our servicemen," Putin said. "We have serious reasons to believe that directly, in the combat zone, citizens of the United States were present." [emphasis added]
Putin is lying. Surely he can't have forgotten about KAL 007, where a Soviet fighter pilot shot down a Korean Airlines 747, killing all 269 aboard (including 69 Americans - one of whom was a Congressman).
And let's not forget that Soviet MiG-15 pilots fought beside Chinese and North Korean pilots in the Korean War:
In order to begin to understand the military, political, and diplomatic forces that shaped the Cold War, it is useful to start with what we now know of the Soviet Union’s military participation in the Korean War. Before scholars gained access to previously top secret Soviet-era archives in the early 1990s, they could only guess at the extent of Joseph Stalin’s direct involvement.
. . .
Recent research in the Soviet-era archives in Russia not only verifies the direct involvement of Soviet units, but also provides an inside view of Stalin’s high-level diplomacy and the military deployments that implemented these policies.