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Putin Stresses Need For Strong Military

PRAGUE, May 10, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin today stressed the need for a strong military not only to guard against potential attacks, but to resist political pressure from abroad.

"We should always be ready to repulse potential foreign aggression and acts of international terrorism," the Russian president said in his annual state-of-the-nation address to parliament. "We should be able to respond to anybody's attempts to put pressure on Russia in matters of foreign policy in order to strengthen their own positions at our expense," he continued, concluding that "it must be said openly: the stronger our armed forces will be, the less tempting it will be to put such pressure on us."

Putin said Russia's army should "fully capable of responding adequately to contemporary threats." However, he said his government would not repeat the mistakes of the Soviet Union by overspending on the military at the expense of other sectors of the economy.

The Russian president noted that, while Russian military spending is comparable with that of a number of other nuclear powers, the United States' defense budget was, in absolute terms, "nearly 25 times that of Russia."

In the first part of his speech, made before both chambers of parliament, Putin focused on economic issues. Alluding to comments by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time of the Great Depression, Putin promised to "step on the toes" of all those who sought to make illegal profits at the expense of ordinary Russians.

He also said that one of his government's main priorities should be to reverse the current decline in the country's population, which he said is shrinking by around 700,000 people a year.

Putin also highlighted Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), telling Russians that the country will join the WTO only on terms that are in its own economic interests.

He also said that WTO negotiations should not be used as a vehicle to make demands on Russia that are not related to entry into the trade body.

Moscow has in the past accused the United States of seeking to stall its bid for membership of the organization.

Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org