Medvedev: we will fight to defend interests

By Christian Lowe and Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia reserves the right to use force again to defend its interests and will not tolerate attempts by Western powers to contain it, President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview broadcast on Wednesday.

In an end-of-year interview that signaled an uncompromising stance toward U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration, Medvedev said Russia's war with Georgia in August showed that tough action was sometimes unavoidable.

"Russia's interests must be secured by all means available, this is my deep conviction. First of all, by international and legal tools ... but, when necessary, by using an element of force," Medvedev said in the interview, which was shown on Russia's main television stations.

Touching on an economic slowdown that represents the biggest challenge to the Kremlin's grip on power in a decade, Medvedev said Russia would weather the crisis but the rouble exchange rate would become more flexible.

That appeared to be an acknowledgement that Russia cannot sustain the billions of dollars it has been spending to support a currency that has come under immense downward pressure as prices for oil, Russia's main export, plummet.

Medvedev ordered a massive counter-attack in August after forces under Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili tried to retake South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia.

The Russian leader said he was compelled to act to prevent a genocide but Western states said the Russian action -- which included sending troops to within a few kilometers (miles) of the Georgian capital -- was disproportionate.

Medvedev alarmed some in the West by announcing the deployment of missiles to the western outpost of Kaliningrad in retaliation for U.S. plans, bitterly opposed in Moscow, to build a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.