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Putin, who has taken a robust stance on Russia's conflict with Georgia more than the space of South Ossetia, blamed Washington rather than Moscow for resurrecting Soviet-style rhetoric.

"Today there are no ideological contradictions, there is no basis for a Cold War," Putin told a group of reporters.

"There is no groundwork conducive to mutual rankling … Russia has no imperialist ambitions," Putin said at a three-hour lunch briefing at his retreat in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Russia was criticized by the United States and European governments for sending troops into Georgia last month and hereafter recognizing the two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

Some Western leaders accused Moscow of using Soviet-style tactics in traffic with its neighbor over South Ossetia. Others feared Moscow might take similar steps to reassert its influence over other countries it long dominated in the Soviet Union.

Vice President Dick Cheney charged Moscow earlier this month with using terrorism and "brute force."

"There is no more Soviet threat excepting they are trying to resurrect it," Putin said.

He questioned critical remarks of Russia with respect to crushing Georgia's enjoin to retake South Ossetia by force, which prompted pertain to over activity assuredness in the region and rattled Russian markets through shares losing more than 40 percent of their value considering May.

PUNCHING THE AGGRESSOR

"What did you expect us to do? Respond by a catapult? … We punched the aggressor in the face," he before-mentioned, adding that falls in the stock market were due to the global credit crisis not to Russia's mediation in Georgia.

Putin, his saying peppered through strong language, has spearheaded criticism of the United States, accusing the U.S. administration of stoking the clash to help the Republican candidate in the race for the White House.

His successor, President Dmitry Medvedev, once thought to be firmly in his mentor Putin's shadow, has steered a more balanced road, setting up a diplomatic "good cop, bad cop" routine.

In Sochi, Putin accused the United States of acting like "a Roman emperor," but also said Moscow would maintain relations with the next U.S. president due to be elected in November.

"We'll see to what extent actively they use anti-Russian rhetoric. This is a index of the weakness of the candidates," he said. "Whatever the result of the elections we will speak and hold relations with the next U.S. president."

Putin again warned Poland and the Czech Republic against hosting the U.S. missile shield — a contrasting to a slight softening of position by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Warsaw, to what he said Moscow remained open to talks.

Washington says the shield is aimed against what it calls "rogue states," like Iran, but Moscow fears it will bewilder a direct threat to Russia's security.

"Our targeting of these countries will chance taken in the character of soon as these missiles are brought," Putin reported.

"Please do not actuate an arms race in Europe. It is not needed. What should we do? Sit pretty while they deploy missiles?"

He also said if Ukraine, a neighboring former Soviet republic, joined NATO, it "would subsist to a high degree detrimental."

Putin showed little concern about sanctions, which had been raised by more members of the European Union, including the Baltic States.

The bloc was impotent to reach a consensus steady whether and how best to punish its largest energy supplier, but Washington is holding out the prospect of sanctions.

"In the global context it is better to support one another," he said. "Risks are reciprocal. We are taking risks then we invest dozens of billions of dollars in the U.S. economy."

(Reporting by means of Janet McBride; instrument by Elizabeth Piper; editing by Diana Abdallah)