Russian President Vladimir Putin says tensions between Moscow and Washington over the Ukraine crisis threaten “strategic stability,” and that his country will not be “blackmailed” by Western sanctions.
Putin’s comments, released Wednesday in Moscow, appear in the Serbian daily Politika ahead of a brief Putin visit to Belgrade Thursday. In an extended interview, he equated ongoing Western sanctions against Moscow with “recklessness,” and he referred to protests in Kyiv that toppled Ukraine’s pro-Russian president early this year as “an anti-constitutional coup d’etat.”
The Putin interview comes ahead of pivotal talks between the Russian leader and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, set for Friday …read more
Source: Voice of America
