This is what the Russian Orthodox Patriarch told Putin in a audience he had with him.
This sounds a little Catholic.
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I particularly note how the dialogue between the state and the Church has developed over this time. This dialogue has helped us to resolve many issues that have a direct bearing on the lives of the people you spoke of just now.

This dialogue is not about abstract matters after all, but is about what directly concerns people’s lives: the state of their souls and level of their morals. Most important of all is that quality of life cannot be measured in material terms only, but has a spiritual dimension too.

I think that the church-state relations in Russia show that the Church can carry out its service in full and support our people in their spiritual life, help them materially too where needed through charity work and through care for young people, people with disabilities, senior citizens, and everyone in need of this kind of help and support.

I thought Russian had to be "consecrated and converted" to prevent them from spreading their errors?

Seems like Russia is trying to find again its Christian heritage while the rest of the West goes off the cliff.

In history religion was a fundamental tool of statecraft. It is only in the last hundred or so years that this was idea was discarded, mainly because the new ideologies, such as materialist atheism, need morally weak populace in order to function. Communism was an abject failure because it is soulless, brutal and inefficient. Well before the collapse of the Soviet Union, probably soon after Stalin's death, this problem was recognized internally. The Soviet (Russian) Empire was failing because Russia was killing itself off through abortion and a total lack of meritocracy. China is not failing as quickly but it too is recognizing these problems gradually.

Today, the West is in the same boat, with an increasingly soulless, brutal and inefficient financial and political system, and a decline in meritocracy. As the Western world discards Catholicism and embraces a dumbed down, artificial morality, it guarantees its own failure and decline, regardless of current military supremacy.

Putin seems to have been part of the group within Russia that recognized the weaknesses of the old regime and has identified Russia's cultural strengths. He needs Russia to find religion once again because policing alone doesn't work in getting people to do an honest day's work and have faith that the fruits of their labor will be passed on to their children. Also, the West is poisoning its youth with porn, drugs and creeping ʝʊdɛօ-Americanism.

The Russian Orthodox Church is not like Catholicism. Many (and possibly all) of its bishops and priests have invalid orders because of the historic link with the KGB. How can orders be valid when the heart of the seminarian is already wedded to Satan? Since all of this was and continues to be a secret part of history, there is no way of knowing the extent of the problem or if anything has changed in the last two decades.

However, Putin's support for Christianity is a good thing. It may lay the groundwork for the "Conversion of Russia", but I wouldn't hold my breath!

Eastern schismatic sects have valid orders but they lack the formal element of the episcopate, which is jurisdiction. They are not successors of the Apostles, but thieves and robbers who have stolen the priestly powers that belong to the Church alone.

Yes, but in the Soviet Union the Russian Orthodox were managed similarly to the Chinese Catholics (as opposed to the underground Church). They are unlike, for example, the Greek Orthodox who have provable validity, but of course are schismatic.

You can criticize all of them for being illegitimate, but the Novus Ordo Church makes them look good in comparison.