Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that the Georgian leadership should first of all concentrate on solving problems existing in the country instead of looking for new enemies. The visiting Russian leader said Russia sympathizes with the Georgian people “as Georgia is facing difficult times and immense social problems”. “If someone believes that problems of that kind could be solved by way of redirecting attention towards the search for new enemies, - this is a wrong path,” President Putin emphasized. “Of course, attention can be diverted for some time,” but the country’s leadership will still have to deal with social problems, “and it is better to solve them in a dialogue with partners,” the Russian leader believes. “Despite the existing difficulties, we are full of optimism,” Putin added. “There are some forces in the Georgian leadership who want to develop relations with Russia,” Putin said, adding that he believed President Mikhail Saakashvili was among them. “I expect that positive tendencies will prevail,” he added. Putin noted that Russia has inherited difficult but solvable problems from the Soviet past. “However, while criticizing the USSR for what was happening in the country, even doing it rightly, we cannot step on the same rake again,” the Russian president emphasized. As for Georgia, the difficult situation in the republic “destabilizes the situation not only in the country, but in the whole region as well,” he noted. (Itar-Tass)