Vladimir V Putin

The Kremlin announced that President Vladimir V. Putin will visit North Korea, a first by a Russian leader. The trip comes at a time when Moscow and Washington disagree about the Communist country's possible threat to world peace. The U.S. is considering building an antimissile defense system against "rogue states" such as North Korea, a proposal strongly opposed by Russia, which sees the plan as a threat to its own nuclear forces.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin held talks in the Kremlin, touching on conflicts in the Middle East and the Balkans as well as U.N. sanctions on Iraq. "We agreed that in this interdependent world we need the United Nations more than ever," Annan told reporters after more than an hour of what he called "good and useful" talks with Putin, Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and President Bush discussed arms control by telephone, their first contact since Bush announced Washington's intention to withdraw from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. A Kremlin statement said that Bush initiated the call and that both presidents pressed for intensified dialogue, two days after the sides agreed to hold talks on cutting their strategic nuclear arsenals. Russia long opposed U.S.

President Vladimir V. Putin wants Russia to return to the past, at least symbolically, by adopting its Soviet-era anthem and czarist-era coat of arms. After a meeting with leaders of the parliamentary political factions and the presidium of the advisory State Council, Putin sent to the Duma, the lower house of parliament, a proposed law calling for official adoption of the double-headed eagle coat of arms and the familiar white-blue-and-red flag.

President Vladimir V. Putin vowed to uphold free media, but the owner of an independent media empire often critical of the Kremlin, who was jailed in Moscow last week on fraud charges, said authorities only wanted a docile press. The Foreign Ministry, clearly irritated by the attention given to Vladimir A. Gusinsky's case, accused the U.S. Congress of dwelling on the issue for what it said was a publicity ploy in an election year.

President Boris N. Yeltsin has unveiled Russia's new Cabinet, giving Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin virtually the same team as his predecessor. The reappointments were largely expected, as Putin, a former KGB spy named prime minister because of his loyalty to the president, had said he expected few changes. First Deputy Prime Ministers Nikolai Y. Aksyonenko and Viktor B. Khristenko, Finance Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, Defense Minister Igor D. Sergeyev and Foreign Minister Igor S.

After a nine-day trip by train across Russia, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il rolled into Moscow for talks expected to focus on renewing an alliance with Moscow and shaping a new security agenda on the volatile Korean peninsula. Russian officials said Kim and President Vladimir V. Putin are likely to sign a declaration on world affairs, which presumably will include strong shared opposition to U.S. plans to build a missile defense system.

President Vladimir V. Putin admitted Tuesday that his government has done little to raise low living standards and warned that Russia's overreliance on raw material exports puts it at the mercy of swings in the world economy. In his annual state of the nation address, Putin urged economic reform, warning that the alternative "is a road to economic and social stagnation." Putin delivered the speech to the political elite in the Kremlin's Marble Hall.

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin issued New Year's greetings to a former pro-Soviet partisan convicted in Latvia of killing civilians during World War II. Vassily Kononov, 80, was convicted last year of war crimes for ordering the killing of nine civilians, including a pregnant woman, in 1944 when Latvia was occupied by Nazi troops. He was a leader of a small band of partisans fighting the Nazis.

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin warned Sunday that he would take retaliatory steps if Washington proceeded with a proposed missile defense system for Europe. Putin assailed the White House plan to place a radar system in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland. He said neither Iran nor North Korea have the rockets that the system is intended to shoot down. "We are being told the antimissile defense system is targeted against something that does not exist.