Here's a precis from our news desk of remarks from Putin ahead of his trip to Serbia today. Pretty feisty stuff, it seems:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised Moscow's "Serbian friends" and lashed out at the West in remarks published ahead of a state visit to Belgrade on October 16.
Criticizing sanctions that the United States and European Union have imposed on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine, Putin told the Serbian daily "Politika" that isolating Russia was an "absurd, illusory goal" and that attempts to do so could severely damage Europe's economy.
In a pointed reminder of Russia's nuclear might, Putin said: "We hope our partners will realize the futility of attempts to blackmail Russia and remember what consequences discord between major nuclear powers could bring for strategic stability."
Putin is to attend a military parade as Belgrade marks the anniversary of its liberation from the Nazis in 1944, a celebration Serbia moved forward four days to accommodate Putin's schedule.
"Seventy years ago, our peoples together crushed the criminal ideology of misanthropy that threatened civilization," Putin said.
In a veiled swipe at the United States, he said "it is important today that people in various countries, on various continents remember what terrible consequences certainty in one's own exceptionalism can bring."
Rumors of secret deals fly before #Poroshenko and #Putin's Milan meeting today. http://t.co/HJ9P8VX9U3 pic.twitter.com/pHvkVTlLn2
— Katya Gorchinskaya (@kgorchinskaya) October 16, 2014
Here's another update from our news desk:
Russia will allot some 3.3 trillion rubles (about $80 billion) from the state budget for defense spending in 2015, according to the chairman of the defense committee in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
Vladimir Komoyedov told the Russian news agency Interfax on October 16 that defense spending for the next year would be some $20 billion more than this year, but he added that his committee foresees slight reductions in spending for 2016 and 2017.
Komoyedov said the amount to be spent on defense in 2015 was some 4.2% of Russia's GDP.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on October 7 that Russia's defense spending plans needed to be "more realistic" in light of international sanctions imposed on Russia over its actions in Ukraine.
A three-year draft budget reportedly calls for a 5.3 percent cut in defense spending in 2016, the first reduction since 1998.
(Interfax, FT)
#Putin threatens West not to put pressure on #Russia over #Ukraine, or else, mentions nuclear arsenal again. Classic line from Kremlin bully
— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) October 16, 2014