Putin Blames Georgia Conflict on US
posted:4 HOURS 21 MINUTES AGO
filed under: News

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin blames the United States for the conflict in Georgia. In an interview with CNN, Putin says the U.S. encouraged Georgia to attack the breakaway region of South Ossetia because it thought a crisis would benefit a presidential candidate.

AOL News has the reaction from the US State Department.

Putin told CNN his defense officials had told him it was done to benefit a presidential candidate — Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are competing to succeed George W. Bush — although he presented no evidence to back it up.

“U.S. citizens were indeed in the area in conflict,” Putin said. “They were acting in implementing those orders doing as they were ordered, and the only one who can give such orders is their leader.”

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino blasted Putin’s statements, saying they were “patently false.”

“To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate just sounds not rational,” she said.

U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood concurred, and labeled Putin’s statements as “ludicrous.”

“Russia is responsible for the crisis,” Wood said in an off-camera meeting with reporters in Washington on Thursday. “For the Russians to say they are not responsible for what happened in Georgia is ludicrous. … Russia is to blame for this crisis and the world is responding to what Russia has done.”

Source: AOL News

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