Guardian: Putin revives energy row with US...

Putin revives energy row with US but promises to help fight terrorism

· Russian leader rejects blackmail accusations
· President denies gas cut off to intimidate Europe

Nicholas Watt, European editor
Friday May 26, 2006
The Guardian

The Russian president Vladimir Putin yesterday returned to his feud with the US
over energy supplies when he declared that Washington is in no position to deliver
lectures after the invasion of Iraq.

Weeks after vice-president Dick Cheney accused Moscow of using intimidation and
blackmail in its energy policy, Mr Putin said he would continue to fight for Russia's
interests.

"We see how the United States defends its interests, we see what methods and means
they use for this," he said, in a thinly veiled reference to the Iraq war.

Mr Putin's remarks, at an EU-Russia summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, showed
the deep anger in Moscow at the intervention earlier this month by Mr Cheney. In one
of Washington's strongest rebukes to Moscow, Mr Cheney accused Russia of using oil
and gas as "tools of intimidation or blackmail".