Putin, who served as president for eight years before Medvedev took office in 2008, hit back at remarks in embassy cable from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is quoted telling his French counterpart that "Russian democracy has disappeared and the government was an oligarchy run by the security services." In an interview airing Wednesday on CNN's "Larry King Live," Putin called Gates "deeply misled" and said the United States wasn't without its own flaws. "When we are talking with our American friends and tell them there are systemic problems in this regard, we can hear from them, 'Don't interfere with our affairs. This is our tradition and it's going to continue like that.' We are not interfering," he said. "But to our colleagues, I would also like to advise you, don't interfere either [with] the sovereign choice of the Russian people." The United States scrambled to contain the fallout from the slow-motion leak of cables from its embassies worldwide Wednesday as new documents showed American diplomats casting a jaundiced eye toward corruption in Russia. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally made "several dozen" calls to counterparts in other countries in an effort to mitigate the damage from WikiLeaks, a website that facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information, a senior State Department official said. /// After a ten-year hiatus, Russian Premier Vladimir Putin has appeared on American TV in an hour-long, just-aired interview, in which he was quizzed by TV host Larry King. Prime Minister Putin and Larry King certainly touched upon some major international headlines, like the latest Russian presidential statement that if Russia and the US do not come to terms on the issue of nuclear arms reduction, it could trigger a new arms race, a statement made as a result of US Congress stalling the ratification of the START nuclear arms reduction treaty signed by Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in April. Vladimir Putin made it very clear that this would be the last option Moscow would want and Russia would never be an instigator to a new arms race, but would only react. "But if we receive only negative answers to our suggestions, and moreover, if there is an additional threat in the form of a new missile shield near our borders, Russia will have to maintain its security by taking certain measures: launch new missile strike systems against the new threats near our borders, and create new missiles," Putin warned. He went on, saying "It's not our choice, we do not want it. And it's not a threat in any possible way. We are just talking about what is awaiting for us in case we can't reach agreement on collaboration. That's it. I repeat, we do not want this at all." Answering an inevitable question about Iran's nuclear program, the Russian PM stressed that the possibility of any country getting a nuclear weapons is a matter of great concern to Russia, so Moscow will proceed to indulge Iran to perform all the activities of their program under the strict control of the international nuclear power watchdog IAEA to make the program fully transparent. But there is nothing wrong with developing peaceful nuclear program. Answering a question about Afghanistan, Putin said Russia actively supports and helps the international mission there and the only thing it will never do is to send its forces there. The story about the alleged Russians spies who were extradited from the US this summer was also on the table, and Putin noted that those individuals had done nothing subversive and were deployed to operate in case of a serious diplomatic crisis between the two countries -- but nothing of the kind could be envisaged in the foreseeable future. "I would like to repeat that those people did no harm to US interests. But I am sure that nobody doubts the fact that any country, including the US, carries out intelligence work," acknowledged Putin, remarking, "By the way, the methods of our intelligence agencies compare favorably with the Americans'. Thank God none of those people, nor any of our intelligence or any other agencies' officers, was involved in the creation of secret prisons or kidnapping and torturing." Giving his assessment on Russian-American relations, Vladimir Putin stressed his positive attitude towards Barack Obama's international efforts, in particular the softening of the negative rhetoric towards Moscow and the scrapping of the previous administration's plans for the deployment of missile defense systems in Europe, a move that alarmed the Russian leadership greatly. Ten years ago, when Vladimir Putin, at the beginning of his first presidential term, first appeared on Larry King's show he appeared as someone who likes straightforward questions without beating around the bush. This time, King's questions were straight to the point and Putin's answers were as sharp and crisp as always.

• published: 02 Dec 2010
• views: 12052