Putin: US orchestrated Caucasus conflict

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-29 16:33

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States on Thursday, asserting that Bush administration may have orchestrated the Georgian conflict to benefit one of the candidates in the upcoming presidential election.

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin speaks during an interview with CNN in Moscow August 28, 2008. [Agencies]

In an interview with CNN, Putin sought to present the Russian military operation earlier this month as a response to brazen, cold war-style provocations by Georgia and the United States. In tones that seemed very angry, Putin suggested that the Bush administration may have tried to create a military crisis that would influence American voters in the choice of a successor to President Bush.

“The suspicion would arise that someone in the United States created this conflict on purpose to stir up the situation and to create an advantage for one of the candidates in the competitive race for the presidency in the United States,” Putin said.

Putin said in the interview, “They needed a small victorious war.”

Putin did not specify which candidate he had in mind, but there was no doubt that he was referring to Senator John McCain, the would-be Republican presidential nominee. McCain is loathed in Russia because he has a close relationship with Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and has called for imposing stiff penalties on Russia.

The White House called Putin’s comments absurd.

On Thursday, Putin also said Russian defense officials believed that United States citizens were in the conflict area supporting the Georgian military when it attacked the separatist region of South Ossetia on August 7.

“If the facts are confirmed,” he added, “that United States citizens were present in the combat zone, that means only one thing - that they could be there only on the direct instruction of their leadership,” Putin said.

In Washington, the White House spokeswoman, Dana M. Perino, dismissed Putin’s remarks. “To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate just sounds not rational,” she said.

When the war broke out, the United States had about 130 military trainers in Georgia preparing Georgian troops for service in Iraq. The American Embassy in Tbilisi said these trainers were not involved in the fighting.

Putin said in the CNN interview that Russia had thought that the United States would prevent Georgia from attacking South Ossetia, but suggested that he now believed that the Bush administration encouraged Mr. Saakashvili to send in his military.