Medvedev to have his own style even if he looks like Putin

Medvedev, who called himself a lawyer "down to my bones," answered the newspaper's questions with long, scholarly responses, the AP reports.

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He denied that he is inviting trouble by naming outgoing President Vladimir Putin to the prime minister's job. Critics say the move would divide power and lead to a potential rivalry.

The president-elect has not said if he would ease the Kremlin's limits on what can be said in national media and permit more open political discussion.

He also expressed interest in improving relations with Britain, but at the same time repeated accusations that the British Council, a cultural organization, has been involved in spying.

Russia's next president reassured the newspaper's journalists that Russia's definition of democracy doesn't differ from that of others, in contrast with Kremlin claims in recent years that its authoritarian-style rule amounted to "managed" or "sovereign" democracy.

Kremlin officials had said Russia 's unique history and culture dictated a different style of democracy than in other nations.

But Medvedev, who is to take office in May, added: "Each democracy has its history and its nationality."

Medvedev also took a tough line on the efforts by Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, telling the newspaper: "No state can be pleased about having representatives of a military bloc to which it does not belong coming close to its borders."

The incoming Russian president also suggested that he thought Russia was insulated from a threatened global economic slowdown, calling Russia's financial markets "islands of stability in the ocean of financial turmoil."

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