MOSCOW, March 20 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, in some of the harshest words by a world leader so far over the U.S. attack on Iraq on Thursday, said the war was unjustified and must end quickly.
Russia had joined France, Germany and China in demanding that United Nations arms inspectors continue their search for banned weapons in Iraq before the countries would back any hostilities.
"This military action is unjustified...there has been no answer to the main question which is: are there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and, if so, which ones," a grim-faced Putin told Russia's top ministers in the Kremlin.
"Military action...is a big political error,"he said in nationally-televised remarks, adding it flouted world opinion and international law.
Iraq has denied having weapons of mass destruction.
The tone of Putin's speech was closer to the more critical rhetoric that marked the Kremlin's view of U.S. policy before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States which prompted the two to join hands in the global war on terror.
Putin's comments were notable for their absence of diplomatic niceties towards U.S. President George W. Bush whom he has routinely described as a friend, or any words of sympathy for the Washington case against Iraq.
The Russian leader, desperately looking for a way to boost the sagging Russian economy, has been dragging his country into the arms of the West, and the United States in particular.
But the crisis over Iraq, with which Russia has long had close economic ties, appears to have tested the new-found warmth between Moscow and its former Cold War foe.
"Iraq has presented no danger, neither for neighbouring countries nor for any region in the world," Putin declared, in a flat contradiction of Washington's view.
In fact, he said, there had been signs that Iraq had begun to cooperate far more with the U.N. arms inspectors.
He underscored Moscow's concern that by going ahead with the war without U.N. backing, the United States was undermining the world body and, in the process, one of the few international institutions in which Russia still has a powerful voice.
"Of no less concern is the threat of a collapse of the international security system," he said.
If the world submitted to the right of might no country would be safe, Putin said. "It is for these reasons that Russia insists on an end as quickly as possible to military action."
One of his senior economic officials said that the U.S.-led war could fuel inflation and give an unwanted lift to the rouble, which would hurt Russia's attempts to export more.
Deputy Economy Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters that continued high oil prices this year could push inflation one percentage point above the government's 10-12 percent target.