For the first time in his political career, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a large group of supporters in Moscow. His speech was punctuated with harsh remarks for Russia's opponents who seek to drag the country back to the turmoil of the nineties. Putin also blasted foreign governments for meddling in Russia's internal affairs.

The event - which brought together at least 5,000 people - took place in the Luzhniki sports arena in central Moscow.

Officially, the rally was part of United Russia's election campaign. Putin - though not a member of United Russia - heads the party's electoral list for parliamentary seats. United Russia's political program is based on the so-called "Putin's Plan," which documents major guidelines for the country's development. The plan is based on Vladimir Putin's past addresses to the Federal Assembly.

The Luzhniki rally was also attended by many people from the new public movement "For Putin!" - people who chose not to join any party, but still wanted to pledge their support for the incumbent president.

The "For Putin!" movement held its first congress one week ago in  Tver, 200 kilometers northwest of Moscow. The movement hopes to rally the nation and further solidify Putin's political course. Thus far, its leaders claim they have already collected over 30 million signatures.

Putin has repeatedly said that he will not run for a third presidential term as it is prohibited by the constitution. However, he has not outrightly rejected the initiative of his supporters, many of whom want him to become a "national leader" after his second term expires in March.

Putin kept silent about his future plans, saying only that there would be a "complete renewal" at the highest levels of power with parliamentary and March presidential elections.

The rally started with a concert of patriotic songs and a TV-link with St. Petersburg which featured Putin's school teacher.

After the introduction, the head of the United Russia party and the State Duma, Boris Gryzlov, presented party's sole candidate in the forthcoming elections. "We are proud of our national leader, we believe in Russia and we believe in ourselves," Gryzlov said, and after these words Vladimir Putin took the stage.

Putin reminded the public that he had never took part in parliamentary election campaigns and added that he did not always like what he called political advertising. But he told his supporters he had to make that effort as "we have no right to allow the State Duma to become a gathering of populists, paralyzed with corruption and demagogy, we cannot allow the repeat of the situation that had already taken place in our country".

The speech that followed was built on two major points - praising the nation's economic and political success and blasting United Russia's opponents.

Among the victories achieved, Putin mentioned the restoration of the country's territorial integrity and the power of the law as well as repelling the aggression of the international terrorism. He praised the economic growth and said that during his presidency Russia returned into the top ten economies of the World and completely repaid the foreign debt. Speaking of the situation in the social sphere, Putin said that mortality rate was falling and the birth rate had just started growing - for the first time in many years.  

With all debts repaid, Russia will start allocating additional means to the social sphere as well as into the industry restructuring and into the defense sphere.  "This is the plan we have developed. All these programs and many others are calculated for many years ahead. And, I repeat, we have means for putting it into life," Putin said.

After summarizing eight years of his presidency and briefly describing the plans for the future, Putin proceeded with sharp criticism of his opponents who, in his words, wanted Russia to be a weak and feeble state, who wanted to split the society, so that they could carry out their dirty tricks.

Without naming any particular parties or movements, the president said that the critics of the United Russia policies can be divided into two groups - those who had ruled Russia for decades and left the people without basic goods and services in the late eighties and those who took key positions in the government in the nineties and served the oligarchs harming the state and the society.  Putin said that these groups were planning a revenge and a return to power through street protests, using the technologies learned from the Western specialists.  

"There are still people in our country who scavenge near foreign embassies like jackals, who begs at the doors of diplomats' offices, who count on the support of foreign funds and governments but not the support of their own people," Putin said in an unusually hard manner, reminding of the expressions he used while speaking of Islamic terrorists several years ago.

"Make sure you come and vote for United Russia," Putin said in the end of his address. "I count on you."

In comments on the Wednesday event, most Russian experts agreed that by mentioning the threat of revenge Putin set the political tension at the highest possible level, which was unusual for such an early date. The rules of political game demand that United Russia and its leader do something even more startling next week - and one clear option is Putin naming his desired successor at the president's post. On the other hand, the Russian leader always preferred to set his own rules. 

By Kirill Bessonov