Obama wrong about Putin, spokesman says

U.S. President Barack Obama was wrong to suggest Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remains partially mired in a Cold War mindset, Putin's spokesman said Friday.

Obama said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press that Putin needs to understand "that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction."

Obama said he believes Russian President Dmitry Medvedev "understands that," but Putin "has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new."

Putin was a frequent critic of the U.S. during his eight years as Russia's president, before he became prime minister last year. Obama makes his first trip to Russiaas U.S. president for talks on Monday and Tuesday.

Obama was wrong about the premier, said Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

"Such a point of view has nothing to do with a true understanding of Putin," he told The Associated Press, and suggested the reason for Obama's view was simply that he "has not yet spoken with Putin they are not acquainted."

"By all appearances he does not have full information about [Putin's] views," Peskov said, adding that Obama's planned breakfast meeting with Putin on Tuesday should clear the air.

"I am convinced that after this meeting, the president [Obama] will change his point of view about [Putin]," he said.

Putin is still widely seen as more powerful than Medvedev, who was elected in March 2008 after Putin tapped him as his favoured successor.

Medvedev has used a softer tone than Putin and has spoken of the need to improve Russia's democracy and its justice system, raising U.S. hopes for a shift from the tight Kremlin control of the Putin era.

In the AP interview, Obama said "Putin still has a lot of sway in Russia," and that meeting with him as well as with the president "ensures that he and Medvedev are hearing the same things and seeing the same things so that they can move in concert in co-operating with us on some critical issues."