Putin criticizes U.S. missile defense plans

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia faces unfair criticism and needless military threats from the West, lashing out in an annual news conference at U.S. plans to deploy missile defenses in Eastern Europe and rejecting grumbling that he is using Russia's gas and oil exports as political weapons. Putin fielded questions from reporters for more than 3 1/2 hours, but left some key questions unanswered: whom he wants to succeed him next year, and whom he believes is behind the recent shocking slayings of Kremlin critics. Putin denounced the possible deployment of elements of an American missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, scoffing at U.S. claims that they would be aimed at intercepting missiles from Iran.

He said Russia would take unspecified retaliatory measures.

"We consider such claims unfounded, and, naturally, that directly concerns us and will cause a relevant reaction," Putin said. "That reaction will be asymmetrical, but it will be highly efficient."

As he has before, Putin said Russia's latest Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missiles were capable of penetrating missile defenses and added that Moscow is developing more effective weapons against which anti-missile systems would be "helpless."

After energy price disputes with Belarus interrupted Russian oil supplies to Europe this winter, Western concerns about Russia's reliability as an energy supplier grew. But Putin rejected suggestions that the country is using energy as a political weapon.

A shop assistant watches Russian President Vladimir Putin's news conference in St. Petersburg, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007. Putin began his annual marathon news conference Thursday by praising Russia's economic growth, but added that the government has much to do to reduce inequalities in Russians' standards of living. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

"The thesis is being thrust on us all the time that Russia is using its old and new economic efforts to attain foreign policy goals. It is not so," Putin said, adding that journalists who advanced such ideas were "ill-wishers."

Also seeking to harm Russia, he said, are "oligarchs who have fled" Russia to avoid prosecution and live in Western Europe or the Middle East -- clear references to bitter Kremlin critics, including Boris Berezovsky, granted political asylum in Britain, and Leonid Nevzlin, who lives in Israel.

Before his death Nov. 23, Alexander Litvinenko -- a former KGB counterintelligence officer -- charged that Putin was behind his poisoning with the radioactive element polonium-210, and the contract-style slaying of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who exposed human rights abuses in Chechnya.

Russian prosecutors, pro-Kremlin lawmakers and state-controlled media, meanwhile, have suggested that Berezovsky or Nevzlin could have ordered Litvinenko's death.

Putin stressed that only investigators and courts could determine who was responsible for the slayings, and indicated that he did not subscribe to theories linking the two. "I don't very much believe in the conspiracy theory, and honestly speaking, it doesn't bother me very much," he said.

The president said Russian authorities would have no reason to kill Litvinenko, portraying him as a small fry who had no access to secrets during his service.

Always one of Russia's main media events, this year's news conference set new records for its length -- 3 hours, 32 minutes, six minutes longer than last year -- and the number of journalists accredited: 1,232.

Putin fielded an array of questions touching on topics ranging from steps to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program to water levels in a particular Russian reservoir. Asked what he does to brighten up a bad mood, he said he talks to his dog, Connie, who "gives good advice" or reads Omar Khayyam poems from a book his wife, Lyudmila, gave him.

"I recommend it," he told reporters.

One point of the annual exercise -- most of which is televised live -- is to demonstrate Putin's command of detailed issues, to showcase his role as the leader of a resurgent country and to portray him as a regular guy.

He cracked an occasional joke and flirted with some female reporters, including a young woman from Murmansk who invited him to her northern city. He asked her name in a meaningful tone, and wondered aloud whether the invitation was personal.

Putin won laughter from supportive, sometimes fawning Russian reporters when he suggested that while he respects the choices made by gays, they aren't helping reverse Russia's population decline.

He hailed Russia's economic growth but added that maintaining the pace and bridging the yawning gap between rich and poor will be a key task for his successor after his second term expires next year.

Despite being pestered repeatedly, he refused to say who that successor might be.

With the March 2008 election drawing closer, the Kremlin is widely believed to be grooming two of Putin's protDegDes as possible successors: First Deputy Prime Minster Dmitry Medvedev and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.

Open support from the highly popular Putin for either man would virtually ensure his election. But Putin did not anoint anyone Thursday.

"There will not be a successor, there will be candidates for the presidency," Putin said, adding that the government must ensure a democratic campaign.

"I reserve the right to express my preference," he said, but added that he would not do so until closer to the vote.

He said, as he has in the past, that he opposed changing the constitution to let him stay in power after 2008, responding to a question about his plans by saying: "Why are you shoving me out ahead of time; I'll leave on my own."