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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned the West on Thursday against starting an arms race in Europe by stationing a US missile defense shield near Russia's borders and said there was no basis for a new Cold War.

Putin, who has taken a robust stance on Russia's conflict with Georgia over the South Ossetia region, 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 at a three-hour lunch briefing at his retreat in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.