Russian president interview - part 2

Jun 25 - In part two of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's interview with Reuters at the Kremlin, he talks about his relationship with former president Vladimir Putin, now his prime minister.

In his first interview with Western media since taking office in May, Medvedev told Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, European editor Janet McBride and Moscow Bureau Chief Michael Stott that the essence of his policies would not differ from Putin's, even if the style might.

Analysts and diplomats in Moscow are divided over Medvedev, a trained lawyer who first met Putin when the two men worked together in the St Petersburg mayor's office in the 1990s.

Putin picked him last December as his chosen successor. Some, including a number of Western ambassadors, see Medvedev as a deliberately more liberal choice, ushering in a new phase of Putin's long-term plan for Russia which will stress freedom, private property and foreign investment.

Others, including Cold War-era hawks, tend to view him with suspicion as an insider moulded by his years in the Kremlin who will turn out to be little more than a Putin puppet.

SCHLESINGER ASKS QUESTION: 'CAN WE TURN TO POLITICS, A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE GREAT INTEREST IN THE RELATIONSHIP YOU HAVE WITH THE PRIME MINISTER... '

SOUNDBITE (Russian) RUSSIAN PRESIDENT DIMITRY MEDVEDEV SAYING : "You know I think we have not a bad union for addressing the hard tasks facing us in the Russian Federation, and we'll work as much as we have to to meet these challenges which face our nation, within the framework of what is legal, of course".

SOUNDBITE (Russian) MEDVEDEV SAYING: I think the threats we have in the contemporay world are the same for everyone. If we want to talk about economic threats, we've been talking about this for the past hour, it's the threat of international financial instability, the crisis in production and all the related problems. If we're talking about other factors, they are also obvious, terrorism, rise in international crime - all are problems for Russian Federation because we're an open society."

SOUNDBITE (Russian) MEDVEDEV SAYING: "We have specific Russian problems, I will mention two of these. Firstly, poverty which we haven't yet defeated. Resolving this problem is the main task for the government. We are going to work hard at this, using all of our economic might. And the second problem I must mention is corruption, corruption as a systemic challenge, as a threat to national security, as a problem which leads to a lack of faith among citizens in the ability of government to bring order and protect them."