PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA WANTS TO AVOID ISOLATION.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin adroitly played upon such concerns in an interview published over the weekend by the Financial Times. In the wake of President Boris Yeltsin’s feckless saber-rattling in Beijing on December 9, Putin was careful to play the role of statesman. The Russian premier dismissed speculation that Russia and the West are on the threshold of a new Cold War. Instead, he spoke soothingly of Russia’s long-term interest in integrating itself fully into the world community through a deepening of its partnership relations with the West. “In a word,” he said, “Russia is not interested in isolation from the international community [or] in a worsening of relations with the West.”

But he also made the now-standard Russian argument that Moscow is unwilling to “pay” for the friendship of the West by accepting limitations on its own sovereignty or by abandoning its national interests. Further, he accused Western governments of having created the current tensions between Russia and the West by using the conflict in Chechnya to pressure Russia and to interfere in Moscow’s domestic affairs (Russian agencies, December 11).

UPCOMING ST. PETERSBURG GOVERNOR’S RACE DECLARED ILLEGAL.