Putin flexes muscles, signals plan to reclaim Russian presidency
April 21st, 2011 - 12:19 pm ICT by ANIMoscow, Apr. 21 (ANI): Heaping praise on his achievements as Prime Minister and previously as president, Vladimir Putin has said Russia must be strong to fend off foreign threats. This is being seen as a clear show of muscle and a signal that he intends to reclaim the presidency next year.
Laying out an ambitious programme of weapons modernisation in an annual address to parliament that sounded much like a campaign speech, Putin promised to spend the equivalent of 426 billion pounds by 2020.
According to The Scotsman, Putin’s more than four-hour-long speech broadly covered long-term economic goals, national security and defence.
He said: “The nation needs decades of stable and calm development without any sharp movements and ill-conceived experiments.”
Putin and current president Dmitry Medvedev are preparing to square up for an electoral battle, but it is widely expected that Putin will regain the top job. (ANI)
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Tags: campaign speech, decades, economic goals, electoral battle, medvedev, moscow, muscles, national security, parliament, president vladimir putin, prime minister, russia, russian presidency, scotsman, signals, top job, vladimir putin, weapons