MOSCOW, Dec 20: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned on Saturday that any attempt to destabilise Russia would be firmly dealt with as the country marked its national day honouring the security services.

“Any attempts to weaken or destabilise Russia, damage the country’s interests and its citizens will be toughly suppressed” Putin told a meeting of top security officials and spies in the Kremlin Friday night.

Putin, himself a former KGB officer, did not specify who might pose a threat to Russia but the message could be addressed both to Western security services and opposition at home.

His remarks were in the same vein as his hawkish speech last year when he accused the opposition of seeking to turn Russia into a “weak, ill” state.

As the economic crisis broadens in Russia, avoiding mass-scale social unrest is a top priority for the Kremlin.

Putin said he was counting on security officials to focus their efforts on pre-empting the “very possibility of carrying out terror acts” in Russia as well as on their “active work in other priority directions too.” “These are countermeasures against corruption, organised crime, fighting narcotics aggression against the country’s citizens. And also protection of economic security,” he said in comments published by the government on its website.

Under Putin, Russia’s president from 2000-08 and widely believed to remain in control of the country, security officials have become notoriously influential and gained top posts in the administration.

Saturday’s national security workers’ day is better known as Chekist Day, after the Cheka, the precursor of the KGB, which was founded on December 20, 1917 by Felix Dzerzhinsky, head of the feared secret police.

As president Putin personally attended the holiday receptions and heaped praise on security officials.

On Saturday, the national television Channel 1 was scheduled to broadcast an annual prime time concert in honour of the day.

Human rights activists have charged that Russia is on its way to becoming a police state. Last week Putin’s government sent a new bill to parliament that would allow the authorities to prosecute critics.

President Dmitry Medvedev, who is a lawyer by training, did not attend Friday’s reception and sent his chief of staff Sergei Naryshkin instead to read out a letter.

In his missive, Medvedev said security officials helped battle terrorism, counterintelligence activities and economic crimes.

“Peace of mind and stability in our society directly depends on the efficiency of solving such tasks,” Interfax quoted Naryshkin as saying.—AFP