President Vladimir Putin has raised the prospect of a return to Soviet-style academic censorship after he accused the West of plotting to distort Russian history in an attempt to crush patriotic sentiment in schools.

The Russian leader claimed that a generation of schoolchildren was learning a version of their past that had been deliberately skewed by historians in the pay of the West.

"Many of our textbooks are written by people on foreign grants," Mr Putin told history and science teachers at a conference outside Moscow.

"They are dancing a polka ordered by those who pay for it. This is undoubtedly an instrument for influencing our country."

In a warning that will send a chill through Russia's dwindling ranks of liberal academics, the president indicated that publishing houses that did not print more patriotic textbooks would face state censorship...