Putin warns arms race not over yet

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MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin warned yesterday that the U.S.-Russian arms race is not over and called for a strengthening of his nation's nuclear and conventional forces so Moscow can better resist foreign pressure.

The remarks, in his seventh state of the nation address since taking power in 2000, follow increasingly sharp criticism of Russia's democratic and foreign policy directions from the United States, including a harsh rebuke by Vice President Dick Cheney last week in Lithuania.

"It is premature to speak of the end of the arms race," said Mr. Putin, who pointed out in the nationally televised address that U.S. defense spending is 25 times higher than Russia's and said his country needs to catch up.

"Their house is their fortress? Well done," he said. "But it means that we must build our house strongly, reliably, because we see what is going on in the world.

"We must always be ready to counter any attempts to pressure Russia in order to strengthen positions at our expense," he continued. "The stronger our military is, the less temptation there will be to exert such pressure on us."

Mr. Putin said Russia's military would work to strengthen both its nuclear deterrent and its conventional forces but without repeating "the mistakes of the Soviet Union and of the Cold War" by draining the country's resources.

Many analysts attribute the collapse of communism in Russia to the Kremlin's inability to keep up with U.S. arms spending during the Reagan administration, particularly its space-based anti-missile initiative known familiarly as "Star Wars."

Skyrocketing world energy prices have provided oil-rich Russia with windfall surpluses that could be used to fund at least a modest defense buildup. Russian revenues totaled $41.8 billion compared with expenditures of $25.5 billion in the first two months of this year, the Novosti news agency reported.

Mr. Putin said his government would soon commission two nuclear submarines equipped with the first new intercontinental ballistic missiles developed in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and that land-based strategic forces soon would get their first unit of mobile Topol-M missiles.

He said the new missiles and warheads would be able to change direction in flight, foiling advanced defense systems such as the one being developed by the United States.