Russia needs to be strong against fortress US: Putin

MOSCOW: Russia faces a 'fortress' United States and must embrace high technology to keep up in a growing arms race, as well as in fierce economic competition, President Vladimir Putin said in a state of the nation speech on Wednesday.

Addressing both houses of parliament and other top officials in the nationally televised, hour-long speech, Putin said Russia must remain on guard in a post-Cold War arms race.

"It is premature to speak of the end of the arms race," Putin said the annual address. "It is in reality rising to a new technological level," the Russian leader said.

Putin said that the United States spent 25 times more than Russia on its defence budget. "In the defence sphere, this is called 'their house is their fortress.' Well done! But it means that we must build our house strongly, reliably, because we see what's going on in the world."

In his sweeping address, Putin also laid out a vision of a Russia switching from an ageing and uncompetitive Soviet-era infrastructure to an economy centred on high-tech areas such as nanotechnology.

"In conditions of fierce international competition, the country's economic development must be based, essentially, on its scientific and technological advantages," he said.

"Unfortunately, one has to face that the majority of the technical equipment used in the national economy is not years behind the top level, but decades."

Putin said that modernisation of Russia's huge but inefficient armed forces was vital to global stability and that the country must be "solid" in the face of US attempts to build a "fortress."