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Putin Ends Visit To Hungary

1 March 2006 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin today ends an official visit to Hungary.

Yesterday, he acknowledged Moscow's moral responsibility for the bloody Soviet suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

"Today's modern Russia is not the same as the Soviet Union used to be," he said. "I have to say, sincerely, that we all feel in our souls the moral responsibility for those events."

Putin is to hold talks with President Laszlo Solyom and Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany and other officials. While energy issues were expected to dominate talks during Putin's two-day visit, the main event is the formal return of a trove of priceless, centuries-old books seized by the Soviet army during World War II and taken to Russia.

Later today, Putin travels on to Prague for a visit to the Czech Republic.

(AP)