Putin says he can conquer Kiev in 2 weeks, aide says remark out of context
Putin’s remark taken out of context, says aide Ukraine loses 15 more soldiers in clashes
Moscow declared Nato a “threat” to its security Tuesday after the Western military alliance announced plans to reinforce defences in eastern Europe because of Russia’s alleged stoking of war in Ukraine.
Moscow’s surprise declaration of a shift in its military doctrine came just ahead of a Nato summit in Wales on Thursday at which beleaguered Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will lobby US President Barack Obama for military help.
Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov confirmed that Mr Putin had recently told European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso in private of Russia’s ability to capture Kiev in two weeks if it wished.
But Mr Ushakov said the comment “had been taken out of context and had a completely different meaning.”
Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reported a summary of a debate at last weekend’s EU summit citing European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso as saying he had spoken by telephone with Mr Putin. The paper said the Kremlin strongman declined to answer questions about Russian troops operating in Ukraine and threatened: “If I wanted I could take Kiev in two weeks.”
European officials proposed sweeping new sanctions on Tuesday to starve Russia’s companies of cap- ital and technology as punishment for Moscow's intervention in Ukraine, where Kiev officials said Russia was bolstering an “invasion” force.
The Russian national security council’s deputy secretary Mikhail Popov said Nato’s plan for new defence units in eastern Europe was “evidence of the desire of US and Nato leaders to continue their policy of aggravating tensions with Russia.”
“I have no doubt that the question of the approach of Nato members’ military infrastructure to our border” will be taken into consideration as “one of the foreign military threats to Russia” when the country’s defence doctrine is updated later this year, he said.
Mr Popov added that Russia’s 2010 military doctrine — a document that already permits the use of nuclear weapons in case of grave national danger — would focus more on overcoming Nato and its new European anti- missile defence system.
Ukraine on Tuesday reported losing 15 more soldiers in the latest day of clashes with Russianbacked insurgents whose ongoing offensive threatens to stamp Moscow’s permanent hold on the eastern half of the exSoviet state.
The Ukrainian President’s appeal for European military assistance in the face of Russia’s alleged dispatch of crack troops into the conflict zone was dis- missed at a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels at the weekend.
But Natp chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the 28- nation alliance would endorse the establishment of a force of “several thousand troops” that could be deployed within “very few days” to meet any perceived Russian military movements in eastern Europe. The New York Times reported the rapidresponse unit would be supported by new Nato members such as Poland that were once Soviet satellites but now view Russian President Vladimir Putin with fear and mistrust.
But the plan would be of no immediate help to Ukraine’s government because since the country is not a member of Nato — a point stressed by Mr Obama in his rejection of calls to involve the US military. London’s Royal Institute for International analyst Affairs Robin Niblett added that “any type of overt military intervention ( by Nato) is highly unlikely” because many members — including Russian trade partners Italy and Austria — do not see a sufficient threat in the Kremlin. Mr Poroshenko convened his national security and defence council late on Monday to discuss mounting setbacks in the mostly Russian- speaking regions in which the Army had until recently put rebels on the back foot.
“The situation is difficult but the Ukrainian fighting spirit is stronger than that of the occupants,” Mr Poroshenko said in reference to more than 1,000 Russian soldiers that Nato believes the Kremlin has sent across the Ukrainian border in recent days.
Senior Ukrainian defence spokesman Andriy Lysenko added on Tuesday that “Russian armed forces are continuing to concentrate troops and military equipment in the towns and cities they had seized.”