Saturday, December 31 2005 15:52 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Moscow: The Indo-Russian strategic partnership is a powerful and constructive factor of the world politics, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

In his New Year greeting message to President A P J Abdul Kalam, Putin said the "Past year has demonstrated that strategic partnership of Russia and India is based on the commonalities of basic long-term interests of the two nations, it has most favourable prospects and is a powerful and constructive factor of the world politics."

In a separate message to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wishing him and the people of India a happy New Year, Putin noted unprecedented intensity of bilateral political and business contacts and dynamic movement in the thrust areas of mutually beneficial cooperation between India and Russia in 2005.

He expressed confidence that 'several meetings in the outgoing year, first of all recent successful summit in Moscow, will transform into grand accomplishments in the interests of augmenting Russian-Indian strategic partnership,' a Kremlin press release said.