Putin pledges cooperation with West

Vladimir Putin yesterday told foreign investors his country would cooperate with the West despite persistent tensions as Russia and Greece agreed to build a gas pipeline amid a debt crisis in Athens.

Speaking at Russia's premier economic forum against a backdrop of tensions over the Ukraine crisis, the Russian president insisted Moscow was "open to the world."

"Our active cooperation with new centres of global growth in no case means that we intend to pay less attention to our dialogue with our traditional Western partners," Putin told the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.

He touted his government's successes, saying a deep crisis due to Western sanctions over Ukraine and lower oil prices which many had predicted "had not happened."

"We have stabilised the situation," he said, appearing in a genial mood.

While Putin played down Russia's current economic woes, liberal allies including chief executive of Sberbank German Gref slammed the government's handling of the crisis.

"We have a gap between our plans and their implementation," he said in televised remarks, adding that Putin was interested in conducting reforms but "is afraid of making mistakes."

Putin's veteran ally and former finance minister Alexei Kudrin on Thursday even proposed bringing forward 2018 presidential polls to help the president conduct sweeping reforms to pull Russia out of the crisis.

Kudrin's proposal unleashed debate, with some seeing it as an attempt to test public opinion and push Putin to conduct radical reforms.