19 February 2004	Thursday	27 Zilhaj 1424

MOSCOW, Feb 18: Russian President Vladimir Putin, eying the votes of the growing nationalist lobby, promised on Wednesday to equip the armed forces with a new generation of long-range weapons matching those of the United States.

Mr Putin spoke in northern Russia at the end of exercises that were marred by reports of aborted missile launches, but which provided the Kremlin chief with blanket television coverage for his campaign for re-election on March 14.

On Tuesday, a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea failed to launch two ballistic missiles as Mr Putin watched from another vessel. And on Wednesday, the navy press office said a ballistic missile from another nuclear submarine, the Karelia, diverted from course after 89 seconds of flight and self-destructed.

Addressing members of the strategic rocket forces, responsible for nuclear long-range weapons, Mr Putin said they would one day have up-to-date systems "capable of striking targets at an intercontinental range with supersonic speed and high accuracy".

Mr Putin, speaking at Plesetsk cosmodrome near Arkhangelsk, went out of his way to say these plans were not aimed at the United States - Moscow's former superpower rival with which he has formed close ties by backing the US-led war on terror.

But he added: "We reserve the right to modernise our weapons in the interests of guaranteeing the security of our country." He said, however, that Russia would look at prospects of cooperating with the United States in developing its missile defences since it did not have money of its own to invest.

"We have good cooperation with our American partners. We will work jointly with them. We only have to agree on the principles of this cooperation," he said.

Russia resisted US plans for a missile defence system for a time and criticised its abandonment of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a first stage in the project. But it has since softened its stand, asking Washington instead to give it a role.

HEADED FOR VICTORY: The popular Putin looks to be coasting easily towards re-election in a field bereft of real competition. But his words on building up Russia's military potential - with its faint echo of former Soviet military parity with the United States - seemed likely to appeal specifically to growing nationalist sentiment in the country.

Mr Putin's political strategists destroyed the liberals and badly mauled the communist opposition in a parliamentary election in December. But nationalist groups have since grown stronger - to the alarm of the Kremlin, many analysts say.

Mr Putin's tour of the military exercises - the biggest show of Russian muscle in more than 20 years with numerous missile launches and flights by strategic bombers - provided him with huge pre-election publicity from state television.

Mr Putin stood in biting cold and snow in winter military fatigues to watch a Molniya rocket blast off from the cosmodrome, carrying up a military satellite.

He congratulated rocket forces on the launch, which he said confirmed Russia's "high level of research and space technology". The "Security-2004" exercises, designed to check the effectiveness of Russia's defences including its nuclear shield, were marred by aborted missile launches - all of which went unreported by state television channels. -Reuters