In response, Ukraine's new government called Putin a threat to the whole world and US Vice President Joe Biden warned that the US and Europe will impose further sanctions against Moscow.
“The world has seen through Russia's actions and has rejected the flawed logic,” Biden said, meeting today with anxious European leaders in Poland.
“Today's statement by Putin showed in high relief what a real threat Russia is for the civilized world and international security,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Evhen Perebinis said on Twitter. “(The annexation) has nothing to do with law or with democracy or sensible thinking.” Thousands of Russian troops have been massed along Ukraine's eastern border for the last few weeks Russia says that was for military training while the US and Europe view the troops as an intimidation tactic.
Putin argued that the months of protests in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev which prompted President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia had been instigated by the West in order to weaken Russia.
He cast the new Ukrainian government as illegitimate, driven by radical “nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites.”
With strong emotion, Putin accused the West of cheating Russia and ignoring its interests in the years that followed the 1991 Soviet collapse.
