"I don't interfere in your politics, please don't interfere in ours,"

Vladimir Putin’s interview today was during a meeting of about 40 foreign experts on Russia invited by the state news agency, Ria Novosti. Most were from the US, Britain, Germany,
China and Japan. He started the meeting with a two-and-a-half hour lunch in which he took questions then invited the group to a villa where he off ered drinks on a terrace with a magnifi
cent view to waves breaking 100 feet below. In a rare view for foreigners, he led the way through his own offi ce, past his desk where the Russian fl ag stood behind his chair. The group ,
known as the Valdai Discussion Club, has come to Russia every summer since 2004. Mr Putin has received them in diff erent venues each time. This year’s location, in the subtropical luxury of Russia’s Black sea coast, was the most exotic.

Mr Putin, looking relaxed and confident, suggested the Americans had not brought Iraq real democracy. "What kind of democratisation can they have in the context of military action?" he asked. He disagreed with those who recommend Iraq's partition as the best or only solution. "This would not end the Iraq problem but start a new one," he said.

Mr Putin was also directly critical of the US. "I don't interfere in your politics, please don't interfere in ours," he told a Washington academic referring to US funding for opposition groups and human rights organisations in Russia. He said independence was a very "expensive" thing in the modern world and only a few big countries such as India, China and Russia could afford it.

"Unfortunately, in some eastern European countries defence ministers are cleared by the US ambassador," before they are appointed, he said. "You know how decisions in Nato are taken," he said, hinting that the United States dominates the alliance undemocratically.

"Russia is a country which cannot live without its own sovereignty. It will either be independent and sovereign or it will be nothing," he said, acording to The Guardian.