Putin: 'New global arms race beginning'

Updated 12.04 Fri Feb 08 2008

Keywords: race, missile, arms, Nato, Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his country will not be drawn into what he has described as a new global arms race.

In a speech to the State Council, Mr Putin said: "It is already clear that a new arms race is being unleashed in the world. We must not allow ourselves to be drawn into this."

"It's not our fault, we didn't start it" - Russian President Vladimir Putin

Mr Putin has raised military spending during his eight-year presidency and approved large-scale military exercises, while criticising what he says is Nato's "muscle-flexing" on Russia's borders and a planned US missile defence shield.

Russia's Nato ties have been strained by concerns about US plans to station the defence shield in Europe as well as issues over Moscow's suspension of a landmark arms treaty and disagreements over the future of Kosovo.

Mr Putin continued: "It's not our fault, we didn't start it. ... funnelling multi-billions of dollars into developing weapons systems. Nato itself is expanding. It's approaching our borders.

"We drew down our bases in Cuba and in Vietnam. What did we get? New American bases in Romania, Bulgaria. A new third missile defence region in Poland, where it's being built."

Elsewhere, Russia's prison service has transferred a jailed former oil executive gravely ill with HIV/Aids to a specialist clinic following an international campaign on his behalf.

The case of 36-year-old Vasily Alexanian has been raised three times with the Russian authorities by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and rights group Amnesty International has also voiced concern.

The former vice-president of the now-defunct Yukos oil company, says he is nearly blind, has cancer of the lymph nodes and suspected tuberculosis and Will die unless he receives life-saving treatment only available outside prison.

Earlier this week, a Russian court refused to release him on bail and Alexanian has accused prosecutors of deliberately denying him treatment to blackmail him into giving evidence against Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is in a Siberian jail and may face trial on a new set of charges this year.