Russian newspapers agree that President Putin's annual address to the nation focused on two key areas: "first demography, then the army," in the words of one commentator.

Some papers wonder whether the speech marked a return to Cold War-style rhetoric and a possible new arms race.

Others focus on Mr Putin's call for increased birth rates, saying he has cleverly poached a key opposition policy as his own.

Vladimir Putin detonated a bomb yesterday... The content of his address invigorates like an army wake-up command... The essence of the address boils down to two moves: first demography, then the army. One gets the impression that either Russia is preparing for "hot war", or the "Cold War" has not yet ended.

Putin let it be known that Russia will resist the interference of alien forces in our vital interests... Putin emphasised attention on our strategic forces, and on the necessity of maintaining strategic balance with the USA.

The president has effectively announced mobilisation. In the past Russia was building military communism; Vladimir Putin is now building military capitalism... Putin does not know another way of solving Russia's problems than by strengthening the state.

Yesterday's address could be the most colourful and important speech of the Putin presidency... If some of the initiatives from yesterday are brought to their logical conclusion, we will soon be living in a completely different country. One can speculate that there will soon be a revision of the current military doctrine towards making it tougher on global threats.

The president's address 2006 turned out to be a high-quality product, catering to virtually all consumer demands. Despite the expectations of experts, the product appears to be mainly for domestic consumption... This year's address is directed to the future. This is effectively Putin's behest and, whoever personally happens to be the solution to the '2008 problem', the future president is doomed to preach Putin's new values.

The 2006 address did not contain any fresh ideas whatsoever... The president made it clear with the entirety of the address that if anybody is interested in a long-term strategy it would not be by any means today's Kremlin.

In the past, young women used to stand under windows thinking what to offer to the tsar, including a selection of measures to raise the birth rate. It is now the other way round in Russia: the head of state does not know what to invent to encourage people to give birth.

It would be naive to expect that a new baby boom will begin as early as 2007 and that the demographic problem will consequently disappear... The most important thing here is that the president's initiatives should be realised on time and competently but as we know there are sometimes problems with that. Presenting a programme of encouraging having more children also means that the authorities are taking from the left-wing opposition what it thought was its own.

Much of what the opposition has been talking about and fighting for for so long was reflected in the address... Yes, of course, the problem of Russia dying out has not only come to a head, it is long over-ripe. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation has been talking about it with great alarm for many years.

The president was expected to say more about the energy dialogue. However, the absence of this theme means that it is progressing painfully, with big problems and serious claims from Europe.

Vladimir Putin mentioned "democracy" only twice, while last year he used this word and its derivatives 23 times. At the same time, more attention was paid to "demography" - six mentions (compared to just one in 2005).

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