Russia 'Sees No One As An Enemy', Putin Says

In a marathon phone-in, Vladimir Putin has criticised the US for treating the country as inferior and repeated his denial there are any Russian troops fighting in neighbouring Ukraine.

The Russian president said Washington could have good ties with Moscow but added it "doesn't need allies, they need vassals".

He also stated that Russia does not view any other country as an enemy and "we don't recommend anyone to see us as enemy".

That assertion came despite tensions with the West over Russia's role in neighbouring Ukraine and his criticism of the government in Kiev, which he accused an economic blockade of the eastern of the country where separatists have seized power.

Mr Putin insisted he remained committed to working with Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko to end the crisis.

And he reassured a resident from Russia's southwest border with

The Russian leader cheerfully dismissed the impact of sanction imposed by the West because of the annexation of Crimea last March.

"The rouble has stabilised and strengthened," he said. "Experts believe that we have passed the peak of the problems.

"We've corrected the rate of the national currency, nothing burst and everything is working."

The value of the rouble collapsed late last year but the currency has now bounced back to a five-month high on the back of a slowdown in fighting in Ukraine and steadying oil prices.

Mr Putin praised his government for turning around the economy, saying it had performed a "highly professional task".

Having earlier said it would take two years for the economy to improve, the president suggested a recovery could now happen sooner.

He discounted such problems as soaring inflation, unemployment and the removal of capital out of the country - estimated at more than $100bn (£67.1bn) last year - saying they were not "catastrophic".

He also told his audience that he did not expect the lifting of the sanctions within the near future.

"It's all about using all of this to our advantage," he said.

Mr Putin defended his approval of a delivery of a long-range missile defence system to Iran and claimed Russia would build its own space station by 2020.

He also criticised the "tragic and shameful" shooting dead of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, praising the security agencies for arresting the suspected killers.

However, he said it might never be possible to track down the mastermind behind the murder on a Moscow bridge.