President Putin has warned off critics of Russia's democratic failings - and in the process had a little fun with the hunting misfortunes of Dick Cheney, the US Vice President.

In February Mr Cheney sprayed an old friend with shot while out quail-hunting, an accident that caused the former Halliburton boss huge embarrassment and forced him to break his aversion to TV interviews to make a fulsome on-screen apology.

This incident appears to have been at the forefront of Mr Putin's mind when he reproved Mr Cheney for presuming to comment on the democratic deficit in Russia.

In a speech delivered in May in the former Soviet republic of Lithuania, Mr Cheney had accused Russia of cracking down on religious and political rights, and of using its energy reserves as "tools of intimidation or blackmail"/

Mr Putin rejected the criticism. "I think the statements of your Vice-President of this sort are the same as an unsuccessful hunting shot," he said, in an interview with a US television news channel, whose transcript was published today. "It’s pretty much the same."

Mr Putin is due to host the US President and the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Japan and Italy, at the meeting in St Petersburg this weekend of leaders from the Group of Eight industrialised nations.

In the interview with NBC Television, Mr Putin said that Russia was ready to listen to "well-intentioned criticism", but added:

"We will categorically object to using all possible levers, including the idea that our society needs democratisation, for interfering in our internal affairs. We consider this absolutely unacceptable."

Russian opposition groups have urged Western leaders to condemn Mr Putin’s record at the G8 summit, but US officials have dampened expectations that Mr Bush may raise the issue openly, saying that concerns over democracy would be discussed privately.

The two leaders did clash openly over democracy at a meeting in the Slovakian capital Bratislava in February 2005. Talking to France’s LCI television, which translated his remarks into French, Mr Putin accused unnamed critics of employing a "colonialist" tone, and said that different countries had different standards that had to be respected.

"If you look at newspapers of 100 years ago, you see how, at the time, colonialist states justified their policies in Africa or in Asia," he said.

"They talked of their civilising role, of the white man’s mission. If you change the word ’civilising’ to ’democratisation’, you find the same logic, you can read the same things in the press of today. There are differences between countries and it could be very dangerous to ignore these."

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