Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin launched his official presidential campaign on Sunday, accusing foreign powers of trying to influence Russia's elections and promising to press ahead with plans to boost defense spending to safeguard the country's dignity.
Mr. Putin's appearance in a soccer stadium here before 10,000 flag-waving supporters was a clear signal that he planned no changes to the top-down political system that he has shaped since assuming the presidency in 2000, despite some weakening of his own popularity in public-opinion polls.
It was his first appearance before a large public arena since he was booed a week ago at a martial-arts competition.
He lashed out at domestic opponents—many of whom have been excluded from the coming parliamentary and presidential elections—accusing them of playing a role in the Soviet collapse in 1991 and looting the country during the ensuing chaos.
He praised Russia's neighbors Kazakhstan and Belarus for helping with his plan to reintegrate former Soviet states into a "Eurasian Union" whose members would enjoy exclusive trade ties.
Mr. Putin, 59 years old, is expected to switch places with his longtime protégé, President Dmitri Medvedev, after March presidential elections in what critics and Kremlin officials alike have called a "castling"—referring to a chess move—of the two leaders. Elections for the State Duma on Dec. 4 will be a closely watched precursor to that contest; the Kremlin-controlled party, United Russia, is expected to win a majority of seats.
Kremlin officials say there are few differences between Messrs. Putin and Medvedev, and that their switch in roles will bring scant change. But analysts say the official return of Mr. Putin to the Kremlin may present difficulties for the West, amid his insistence that the U.S. and European Union are trying to undermine him.
Mr. Putin's speech Sunday before the pro-Kremlin United Russia party was riddled with parallels to a speech he delivered a few months before Russia's last presidential elections four years ago, where in the same stadium he promised a revival in Russia's government and denounced his critics as foreign-financed "jackals."
After accepting the party's formal nomination for president on Sunday, he told the cheering audience that "some foreign countries are gathering those they are paying money to—so-called grant recipients—to instruct them and assign work in order to influence the election campaign themselves."
He called the alleged funding a "wasted effort, as we say money thrown at the wind, firstly because Judas is not the most respected biblical character in our country."
In a clear jab at the financial troubles in the EU and the U.S., he advised governments that "it would be better to pay off their debt with this money and stop pursuing inefficient and costly economic policies."
Mr. Putin, who was initially installed in the Kremlin after the resignation of Boris Yeltsin 12 years ago, said he believed that only his government had the experience to take Russia into a better, more prosperous future. His critics, he said, had already discredited themselves with their own efforts to run the country and "ran it to complete collapse—I mean the collapse of the Soviet Union—while others went on to degrade the government and organize the unprecedented looting of the 1990s" in Russia.
"They destroyed industry, agriculture and the social sphere," he said, and "thrust the knife of civil war into Russia's very heart," referring to the two wars the Kremlin fought against Chechen separatists.
Because he stepped down from the presidency for the past three years, Mr. Putin now is eligible for two more six-year terms in office, and so could become the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin.
Mr. Medvedev, who introduced Mr. Putin at the party meeting Sunday, said "there is no more successful, experienced or popular politician in Russia" and that in nominating him for president "we have officially determined our political future not just for the short term but for the long term."
Another high-level member of Mr. Putin's circle, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, resigned from the government in September after the so-called castling of leaders was announced. People close to Mr. Kudrin said he was disappointed that he wasn't offered the prime minister's job; Mr. Kudrin also said he was against a planned boost in military spending after elections.
Mr. Putin said on Sunday that he did plan such a boost and that "in the next five to ten years, we have to bring a new level and our armed forces to a new level."
"Of course it will be expensive," said Mr. Putin. "But we must do this if we want to protect the dignity of the country."
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