WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to continue speaking out “forcefully” about human rights violations in Russia, even after Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin responded angrily to criticism of his country’s elections by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a top State Department official said Wednesday.

The official, Phil Gordon, assistant secretary of state for Europe, welcomed a call from President Dmitri A. Medvedev for an investigation of the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections but said the United States would not hesitate to keep pressing Moscow for greater accountability and respect for human rights.

But any action in Russia is unlikely before Dec. 21, when a new parliament is seated.

“While we will continue to pursue our common interests,” Mr. Gordon told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on European affairs, the United States would “never be shy about talking frankly about our differences.”

Mrs. Clinton’s public criticism last week drew an unusually sharp retort from Mr. Putin, who suggested that the United States had instigated widespread antigovernment protests and that Mrs. Clinton had sent demonstrators “a signal” by criticizing the elections.