Russia is anxious to protect its reputation because it will host the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi , the first Olympics on its soil since the 1980 Moscow Games and a prestige project for the Kremlin.

 

Putin said: "We need to create all conditions to create a mechanism of state [anti-doping] control and act energetically.

 

"If needed, let's discuss questions concerning toughening responsibility for this.

 

"The problem of sports doping now ranks among the most important problems and its details are generally known.

 

"Russian sport had always developed in traditions of fair and honest competition.

 

"These traditions should be continued in the future, too."

 

Russia's reputation has been badly dented by a series of doping scandals in the last year involving their athletes and biathletes.

 

The International Biathlon Union (IBU) this month initiated disciplinary measures against Dmitri Yaroshenko, Ekaterina Iourieva and Albina Akhatova after they failed drug tests.

 

IBU president Anders Besseberg said: "We are facing systematic doping on a large scale in one of the strongest teams of the world."

 

Akhatova is an Olympic champion and three-times world champion, Yaroshenko is a two-times world champion while Iourieva is a world champion.

 

Last year, Russian biathlete Tatyana Moiseyeva failed a drugs test at the World Championships in Sweden but charges against her were dropped after the IBU accepted explanations from the former world junior champion and her doctor.

 

In another case, 2002 Olympic champion Olga Pyleva was stripped of her silver medal and banned for two years after testing positive for the stimulant carphedon at the Turin Games three years ago.

 

Russian athletes were accused of "systematic planned doping" by Arne Ljungqvist, the Swede who is chairman of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Medical Commission and also a vice-president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), on the eve of the Beijing Olympics last August after seven female runners and throwers were banned for manipulating urine samples.

 

They included Yelena Soboleva, the world's top-ranked 800 and 1500 metres runner in 2008, and Tatyana Tomashova, who finished second in the 1500m behind Britain's Dame Kelly Holmes in the Athens Olympics four years ago.

 

There was further controversy last October when Russia banned them but backdated the suspensions so that they would be able to compete in this year's World Championships in Berlin.

 

The International Association of Athletics Federations are currently appealing the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

 

Putin, who held up sporting victories as a symbol of Russia 's resurgence as a world power during his eight years as president, made clear national sports officials shared the blame for doping scandals.

 

He said: "We have no right and will not load all the burden on sportsmen alone.

 

"Sports managers should understand their own responsibility."