No One Will Be Targeted at Olympics, Putin Says

MOSCOW - Seeking to head off one of several simmering controversies ahead of next month's Winter Olympics, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Friday that no one would be targeted at the Games under a federal law banning 'homosexual propaganda' among minors, even as he defended the law as a way to protect children from exposure to nontraditional relationships.

In a meeting with dozens of young volunteers weeks before the Games open Feb. 7 at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, the president said that the law, which has generated international criticism, is far less draconian than antigay measures in other countries, including laws that once prohibited sodomy in parts of the United States.

'We are not forbidding anything and nobody is being hauled in,' Mr. Putin said in remarks broadcast by Russian state news media. 'There is no punishment for these kinds of relations, unlike many other countries, including the United States, where several states have criminal penalties for nontraditional sexual orientations.'

Mr. Putin said visitors to Sochi, including gay men and lesbians, could be 'relaxed and calm.'

'But please, leave the children alone,' he added.

The law, signed by Mr. Putin in June, authorizes arrests and fines for those who spread 'propaganda of nontraditional sexual orientations' among minors, a legal term that critics have called vague and that relies on Russian prosecutors and judges for interpretation.

President Obama sent a protest of the law last month by appointing Billie Jean King, a pioneering tennis player who is a lesbian, to an official Olympic delegation that he said 'represents the diversity' of the United States.

Mr. Putin's defense of the law is the latest move by Russian officials to halt growing criticism of the preparations for the Games, which have included ill treatment of migrant laborers, environmental damage from construction, allegations of corruption and concerns over security after two bombings in the southern city of Volgograd rocked the country last month. Two more bombings on Friday in Dagestan, a restive republic in the North Caucasus, reportedly injured five Russian civilians and two policemen, according to news3blog.blogspot.com, which said the attack was reported moments after the Putin interview was broadcast.

On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who has taken a leading role in planning the Games, said that reports of corruption among construction companies building the Olympic sites and infrastructure were 'anecdotal.'

'Nothing has vanished,' Mr. Kozak said. 'To this day I have not received any information, thank God, about the threat or risk of open malfeasance, kickbacks or corruption from reports by the security or oversight agencies.'

Gian Franco Kasper, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee, told a Swiss radio outlet last week that more than a third of the budget for the Olympics had been embezzled.