TODAY: Putin warns against state intervention and reliance on the dollar during his Davos speech; Castro in Russia for trade-boosting visit; staged rallies of Kremlin support fall flat; still no unambiguous response from Russia on missile defense retaliation plans.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s opening speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos focused on the dangers of excessive state intervention in the economy, saying that Soviet measures ‘finally led to our economy being totally noncompetitive.  We paid dearly for that lesson. I am confident that no one would want to retry that.’  One journalist responds, ‘It beggars belief to hear a Russian leader warn the west not to turn into the Soviet Union’.  Some were surprised that Putin did not blame the US outright for the global financial crisis, but he did insist on a rebalancing of global power as a way out of it, spoke about the death of investment banks in contrast to the US’ ‘cloudless prospects’ of last year, and pointed out that ‘the existing financial system has failed‘.  He also suggested that the world should move towards a system of multiple reserve currencies, questioning the reliability of using just the US dollar.  The Times sees Putin as having ‘eaten his words’.  China and Russia reportedly held a private meeting on the sidelines of the Forum last night to discuss measures for countering the effects the crisis.