MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a real tragedy for tens of millions of people who suddenly woke up finding themselves living under foreign realities, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

"Russia has been through a complicated path of fundamental transformations and this process is ongoing," Putin said at the 23nd annual session of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

"We witnessed the collapse of the state system 35 years ago and it was a real tragedy for tens of millions of people who, overnight, found themselves waking up in another country, and it changed their fate, the fate of their children," the Russian president added.

President Putin is taking part in a plenary session of the 23rd annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, titled "Responsibility for the Future: Limits of the Possible or Possibilities Without Limits?".

The club’s flagship conference brings together 120 participants from 40 countries, including Algeria, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Putin has been taking part in the club’s meetings since its establishment in 2004. The first conference was held in Veliky Novgorod, near Lake Valdai, which gave its name to the event. Since 2014, the club’s meetings had been held in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, but this year the Valdai session has been relocated to the Moscow Region as it is more convenient for most of its participants to get to Moscow.