Vladimir Putin has accused the US of seeking to hold Russia back by dragging it into a conflict over Ukraine, while insisting he wanted talks with Washington and Nato to continue to avoid a “negative outcome” such as war.
In his first public comments in several weeks since the US warned that Moscow was massing over 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border, the Russian president said Ukraine was being used as a “tool” by Washington.
“The US is not so much concerned about the security of Ukraine — although maybe they are thinking about it somewhere in the background — but their most important objective is to contain the development of Russia. This is what it is all about,” Putin said during a press conference with Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban in Moscow.