Moscow - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned Tuesday that "the era of cheap gas" would soon be over in an address to ministers of gas exporting countries meeting in Moscow.

"The expense necessary for the development of fields is rising sharply, and this means that despite the current financial crisis and the fall of prices on energy commodities, the era of cheap energy resources, of cheap gas, is coming to an end," Putin said in televised comments.

Moscow, Dec. 6 : A Georgian woman has claimed that she is Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s real mother.

Vera Putina, 82, has claimed that Vladmir is the child she gave away at the age of ten, giving an account of an unhappy childhood, which is fiercely disputed by the Kremlin.

The Telegraph reports that Vera Putina lives hand-to-mouth in rural Georgia. Her house sits on a dirt track in the village of Metekhi, about 12 miles from Gori that was occupied by Russian tanks this August during the conflict over the breakaway state of South Ossetia.

A tiny woman, with gnarled worker''s hands, only Putina''s strong cheekbones and deep-set, piercing blue eyes are suggestive of who she claims she is.

MOSCOW, Dec. 4  -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he expects better relations between Russia and the United States when Barack Obama becomes president.

Putin took questions from the public during a three-hour session that was broadcast on radio and television, his first such appearance since he became prime minister, the RIA Novosti news agency reported..

He said Obama appears to be less enthusiastic about a proposed missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic than the Bush administration. Obama has said he would only support the shield if it is shown to be effective.

MOSCOW, Dec. 4  -- The European Union should stop "clinging to the past" in its attitudes towards Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

Putin said the union is Russia's biggest trading partner and increasingly involved in oil and gas development in Russia, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

He welcomed the EU decision this week to resume discussions on a new treaty with Russia. The talks had been suspended after Russian troops entered Georgia in August.

Moscow, Nov. 28 : Not so long ago, Vladimir Putin was adamant about changing Russia’s Constitution to allow a president to extend his or her four-year term thrice consecutively.

"The terms of presidential authority will not be changed under the current president," Putin had said unequivocally in 2001.

Now, months after leaving office and becoming prime minister, Putin is helping current President Dmitry Medvedev to rewrite the Constitution to extend the presidential term.

Moscow- Russia is prepared to make plans to deploy missiles in its Kaliningrad exclave "disappear" if the United States drops plans to base part of its missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia's prime minister said Monday.

If the new administration of US president-elect Barack Obama drops deployment plans for a missile shield in what Russia considers to be within its sphere of influence, then "questions of our retaliatory measures will disappear by themselves," Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told journalists at a forum in St Petersburg.