Putin: "Financial Support to EU countries a possibility

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Russia "does not rule out the possibility" of direct financial support to some European countries. "Russia is actively participating in the international effort to support the ailing European economies, and is consistently working with its partners to formulate collective decisions under the auspices of the IMF. Russia is not opposed in principle to direct financial assistance in some cases," said Putin in his article published on the Russian news agency (RIA Novosti) website. "At the same time I believe that external financial injections can only partially solve the problem. A true solution will require energetic, system-wide measures. European leaders face the task of effecting large-scale transformations that will fundamentally change many financial and economic mechanisms to ensure genuine budget discipline," he explained. According to Forbes, Russia has the third-largest cash reserves in the world, after China and Japan.