President Dmitry Medvedev has expressed surprise at how much alcohol Russians drink and ordered the government to develop a program to discourage drinking.

"The alcohol consumption we have is colossal," Medvedev told Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova at a meeting this week.

"I was astonished to learn that we now drink more than we did in the 1990s, although those were very tough times," Medvedev said, according to a transcript on the Kremlin's web site.

He told Golikova to devise an anti-alcohol strategy. "We need to prepare a corresponding program and take appropriate measures," Medvedev said.

A report by The Lancet medical journal last week said alcohol-related diseases caused about half of all deaths of Russians between the ages of 15 and 54 in the 1990s.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin highlighted the problem at a meeting with World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan last Friday and promised to promote a healthier lifestyle.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who initiated a 1986 anti-alcohol campaign that led to a boom in illegal production of low-quality alcohol, called on Monday for a new drive. "We are destroying ourselves, and then we will look for those who destroyed our country, for those who made us drink," he said.

(MT, Bloomberg, Reuters)