MOSCOW. Feb 2 (Interfax) - Russia does not fully meet standards required to join the WTO, Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said.

"For Russia joining the WTO now means joining the rules of international trade. There are a lot of rules there, and they are very detailed. There will be special agreement with Russia on how to get through the transition period," Kudrin said on the air of Russian television's Channel One on Saturday.

"Sometimes there is cunning (in relation to Russia): one tries to make starting conditions worse for Russia," the minister said.

In this regard, it might be necessary to extend the Group of Eight composition in order to secure that a collective dialogue is held, Kudrin said.

"We are a G8 member, but we think that today some 13-14, rather than 'eight' are required to hold a collective dialogue and to work out equal rules," the minister said.

Anatoly Chubais, who was a key figure in President Boris Yeltsin's administration and today is chief executive of Russian national electricity company UES, argued in the same television program that Russia's foreign policy is an obstacle to the country's accession to the WTO.

One problem are Russia's strained relations with WTO member states, according to Chubais.

"From Georgia to Ukraine and from Estonia to the United Kingdom, one comes across a situation that is not very friendly," Chubais said.

"Ukraine has joined (the WTO), so has Georgia. This means that we will now ask Ukraine for permission to join the WTO," the UES top manager said. This raises the question "what Russia pays for its foreign policy and whether we can afford to continue this kind of policy in this absolutely new economic environment," he said.

Kudrin, however, said Ukraine, in view of its relations with the West, was most likely joining the WTO on terms unfavorable to it in order to become a member of the organization before Russia does and gain some advantages over its northern neighbor.

"And I fear that some of Ukraine's industries will be worse off. Russia is joining on terms that will guarantee stability to the Russian economy. Of course, we need to join. We will have a completely different type of economy," the minister said.

"If our moves are only based on the needs of own market, on its development, we will never become an economically competitive world power. We should take our niche in the world market, and this is feasible, and we will do it, including on the basis of the WTO rules, because it is those rules that will liberate us," Kudrin said.

Another participant in the debate, former acting Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar, director of the Transitional Period Economy Institute, cited world experience as evidence that joining the WTO serves to speed up a country's economic growth by between 0.5% and 0.7%.

"If we look at a two-generation period - about 50 years, - this means two different countries," he said.

Today's Russians would not feel the effects of Russia's WTO membership but their children would, he argued.