Putin will be long-serving, powerful premier

By Michael Stott

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he intended to become a powerful and long-serving prime minister after leaving the Kremlin but rejected suggestions he would dictate orders to his likely successor.

Putin, giving his last annual news conference before his second term ends in May, said he fully trusted the Kremlin's candidate for president, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and would have no problems working with him.

Medvedev enjoys blanket coverage on state-controlled media and is widely expected to win a big poll victory next month.

"Dmitry Anatolyevich (Medvedev) and I have worked together for 15 years and I would never have deigned to support a candidate for president if he needed coddling and advice on how to behave," Putin told hundreds of reporters at the Kremlin in a marathon event lasting a record 4 hours and 40 minutes.

Political analysts have questioned how Medvedev would occupy Russia's all-powerful presidency and work effectively with his former boss as a subordinate.

Russia's constitution assigns the prime minister a largely economic role, with all key security and power ministries reporting directly to the president.

Putin, 55, said he and Medvedev would "divide our responsibilities and I can assure you that there will be no problem here".

"The highest executive power in the country is the government of the Russian Federation headed by the Prime Minister," he added.

Asked how long he would be premier, Putin said the post "cannot be transitional." As long as Medvedev was in the Kremlin and Putin was achieving his goals, "I would work as long as possible," he said.

Putin also addressed for the first time Western news reports that he had amassed a huge personal fortune while in power, dismissing the claims as "rubbish".

Using typically colorful language, he said the reports were "just excavated from someone's nose and then spread on those bits of paper".

On foreign policy, the Kremlin leader repeated warnings that Moscow would target Russian missiles at NATO countries which hosted parts of a planned U.S. missile defence shield and would strongly oppose independence for the Serb province of Kosovo.

LESS AGGRESSIVE TONE

But overall, he struck a less aggressive tone than before, saying Moscow was more interested in dealing with social and economic problems at home than in a new Cold War.

"To suppose that we aspire to return to the times of the Cold War is just too bold a supposition," Putin said.