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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Search Search: Crisis-hit Russia faces tough year: Putin AFP - Tuesday, April 7 MOSCOW (AFP) - - Russia faces a difficult year as the global economic crisis bites but has managed to avoid the worst-case scenario, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday. ADVERTISEMENT "The year 2009 will be very difficult for us," Putin said as he presented his government's anti-crisis plans before the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament. "But we have managed to avoid a worst-case scenario," he said. "The economy has proven its ability not just to survive but to develop in new, less favourable conditions." Putin's address fulfilled a new law requiring the premier to address the Duma once a year and answer lawmakers' questions, a normal practice in Western democracies but an unusual event in Russia in recent years. The format put the powerful president-turned-premier on the defensive as he took heat under questioning -- notably from the opposition Communists. Mounting economic troubles have cast doubt on the future of the government led by Putin, whose popularity is largely based on the growth and stability achieved during his eight-year presidency that ended in 2008. Putin spent much of the address defending his record. Last year a massive crisis in the banking sector had been "literally on the doorstep" but now "the threat of a banking system crisis has receded," Putin said in the address, broadcast live on state television. He also said the ruble had stabilised after losing over a third of its value and that inflation would likely drop in 2009. With careful economic management, Russia would weather the economic storm, the prime minister argued. "We need financial discipline. We have no room for needless expenditures," Putin said, after the government announced that its 2009 budget would run a deficit for the first time in years, largely due to a plunge in oil prices. Putin said the government would spend three trillion rubles (90 billion dollars, 67 billion dollars) in anti-crisis measures for 2009, over half of which would come from reserve funds amassed from windfall oil revenues. Last fall Russia announced spending measure totalling close to 200 billion dollars to fight the crisis, but nonetheless the government anticipates the country's economy to contract 2.2 percent in 2009. In an anti-populist note, Putin rode to the defence of Russia's bankers, telling lawmakers: "Call them anything you like -- fat cats, or whatever... (but) don't attack the bankers too much." However he also stressed social programmes and said the authorities had to limit the social fallout from the crisis. "A surreal nightmare will begin if we disturb balance between social justice and economic expediency," Putin said. The 56-year-old prime minister sat through some rare public criticism when top lawmakers from different parties offered their reactions to his plans. "We say openly that if the government continues to apply its monetarist policies, it deserves to be dismissed," said Gennady Zyuganov, head of the minority Communist Party. "Russia's main enemy is that part of the bureacrats which sits back and is engaged in sabotage," thundered Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party. Putin made clear his government would support certain sectors of the economy considered strategically important, singling out defence enterprises and Russia's dwindling aircraft manufacturing industry. In closing remarks Putin stressed the need for political continuity, drawing a parallel with the overthrow of the Russian monarchy in 1917 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. "The tsar abdicated responsibility, the Soviet leadership abdicated responsibility and the country collapsed twice," Putin said. "Neither you nor we -- the executive power -- have the right to abdicate responsibility in difficult times. Everyone should walk his share of the path." The requirement that the prime minister address the Duma was introduced into the Russian constitution last year, along with an amendment that extended presidential terms from four years to six. 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