Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday in his sixth annual televised question-and-answer session that Russia was working on new types of nuclear weapons as part of a "grandiose" plan to boost the country's defense.

"We will develop missile technology including completely new strategic (nuclear) complexes, completely new," Putin said in an annual televised question-and-answer session with Russian citizens. "Work is continuing and continuing successfully."

"We have plans that are not only big, but grandiose, they are fully realistic. Our armed forces will be more compact but more effective and better ensure Russia's defense," Putin said.

In a striking contrast to the chaotic 1990s with its piecemeal financing of the demoralized army, Putin has overseen the roll-out of new jets, tactical and anti-aircraft missiles and even what Moscow says is the world's biggest vacuum bomb.

A few hours earlier, Russia successfully test-fired its newest Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northwestern Russia. State television said it hit a target in the Pacific, thousands of miles away.

"We serve our fatherland!" the officers who fired the missile replied in chorus after Putin congratulated them on the successful launch.

Putin did not specify what kind of "completely new strategic weapons" Russia was developing.

But he stressed that apart from its land-based ballistic missiles, Russia would also develop other segments of its "nuclear triad" - nuclear submarines and strategic bombers.

Putin said Russia would modernize its turbo-prop Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers, codenamed "Bear" by NATO, and the formidable "Blackjack" Tupolev-160 jet, the world's largest.

In August Putin ordered "Blackjacks" and "Bears" to resume round-the-clock patrols across the world, bringing back memories of Cold War-era muscle-flexing.

Putin said a recently launched nuclear submarine would soon be commissioned after naval tests.

"We will pay attention not only to developing the nuclear triad but other weapons as well," he said. "We will see a new generation of jet fighters completed and sent into active duty."

US battle in Iraq 'pointless'

Putin also suggested in the session that the US military campaign in Iraq was a "pointless" battle against the Iraqi people, aimed in part at seizing the country's oil reserves. An audience member asked Putin about comments made years ago by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who suggested that Siberia had too many natural resources to belong to one country. "I know that some politicians play with such ideas in their heads," he said. "The best example of that are the events in Iraq - a small country which possesses huge oil reserves. "One can wipe off a political map some tyrannical regime ... but it's absolutely pointless to fight with a people," he said. "Russia, thank God, isn't Iraq. It has enough strength and power to defend itself ..."

Putin suggested that a concrete date must be set for the withdrawal of US troops. "I believe one of the goals is to establish control of the country's oil reserves," he said.

Unless a date for pulling out is set, Putin said, "the Iraqi leadership, feeling (safe) under the reliable American umbrella, will not hurry to develop its own armed and law enforcement forces".

"When they know that there is a deadline, after which there will not be American bayonets there, then, I think, they will work more effectively and harder to strengthen their own armed forces."

Agencies

(China Daily 10/19/2007 page10)