Putin warns of new worldwide arms race

"A new round of the arms race is developing in the world," said Putin, who chaired a meeting of the consultative State Council on Friday to outline the concept of strategic long-term development of the country up to the year 2020.
"Unfortunately, this does not depend on us. It is not our country that started it," said the president, who will step down after eight years in office following the March 2 presidential elections.
Putin said the developed countries, relying on their technological superiority, are channeling billions of dollars into the designing of the next generation of defensive and offensive weapon systems.
"Their allocations in the defense sector exceeded Russia`s allocations dozens of times," he said.
He said that growing military-political threats are forcing Russia to take adequate measures to safeguard its national security, adding that Russia is to respond to these challenges by developing more high-tech weapons.
"Russia has and will always have a response to these new challenges," said Putin.
"Over the next few years, Russia will ...