Russian President Vladimir Putin says the world is better off without Saddam Hussein but he has criticised the US-led military operations used to bring the Iraqi leader down.
Putin, speaking ahead of meetings with the leaders of France and Germany, who, like Russia, opposed the war on Iraq, also on Friday called for the United Nations to be given a leading role in deciding the future of post-Saddam Iraq.
However all three were up against US resistance to the notion of giving up authority for rebuilding Iraq after US and British forces secured control of Baghdad and ousted the Iraqi president.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that had been ruled out. A top Pentagon official suggested the three would best contribute to reconstruction by forgiving debts to any new Iraqi government.
Speaking alongside German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at a conference, Putin said: "We always said that the regime of Saddam Hussein does not correspondent to democracy and human rights...but you can not solve such problems with military means."
Answering a conference participant, Putin, who was later to meet French President Jacques Chirac, said 80 percent of the world fell short of western democratic standards. "Do we go to war with all of them?" he asked ironically.
"If we weigh up what is good and what is bad in the results of this war - it is positive that we have got rid of a tyrannical regime. But by what means? - Losses, destruction and the deaths of people. This is a negative consequence," he said.
Putin, Chirac and Schroeder, who fought hard at the United Nations to prevent the war against Iraq, gathered in St Petersburg to press home calls for the United Nations to oversee post-war reconstruction and also find ways to mend ties with Washington.
All three appear to lend little credence to statements by US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the United Nations would play a major role.