Putin warns Europe against sabotaging US-Russia rapprochement

By Vladimir Soldatkin and Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin on Thursday warned "Western elites" against trying to sabotage a potential rapprochement between Russia and the United States, saying Moscow would use its diplomats and intelligence services to thwart such efforts.

Addressing Russia's FSB security service, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB and an agency he once led, Putin said he was pleased with the way an attempted reboot in ties between Moscow and Washington was progressing, even though it was early days.

"I note that the first contacts with the new American administration inspire certain hopes. There is a reciprocal mood to work to restore intergovernmental ties and to gradually resolve the huge number of systemic and strategic problems that have built up in the world's security architecture," said Putin.

He went on to hail the fact that Russia's current "partners" were demonstrating what he called pragmatism and realism and - in an apparent reference to Joe Biden's administration - abandoning the "ideological cliches" of their predecessors which he said had caused a crisis in international relations.

But Putin said it was clear that not all countries were in favour of the idea of warmer ties between the world's two biggest nuclear powers.

"We understand that not everyone is happy with the resumption of Russian-American contacts. Some Western elites are still determined to maintain instability in the world, and these forces will try to disrupt or compromise the dialogue that has begun," said Putin.

"We need to be aware of this and use all possibilities when it comes to diplomacy and our intelligence services to disrupt such attempts."

He did not spell out who he had in mind. But his comments looked like a reference to the European Union and Britain, which have raised concerns about the prospect of any Russia-U.S. talks to end the war in Ukraine that do not have Kyiv and the EU at the negotiating table and are too soft on Moscow.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is due to hold talks with Trump in Washington on Thursday, has said he would be ready to send British troops to Ukraine as part of any postwar peacekeeping force, something Moscow opposes. French President Emmanuel Macron has also spoken in favour of deploying troops.

In other parts of his speech, Putin told FSB chiefs that cyber attacks against Russia were on the rise and that Moscow had to strengthen its counter-intelligence efforts.

He also called on the FSB to continue its work against "international terrorism" and to put special effort into preventative measures when it came to protecting military, industrial, transport and energy infrastructure.

Putin, who said he still hoped it would be possible to create what he called a more balanced European and global security system, said he believed that the West itself was now in the midst of a serious crisis.

"You and I can see it," he told the FSB. "They have begun to destroy Western society itself from within. This is evidenced by the problems in the economies of many Western countries and in their domestic politics."

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow and Andrew Osborn in London; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)