West egged on coup in Ukraine, Putin claims

He accused the West of encouraging an anti-constitutional coup in Ukraine and driving it onto anarchy and declared that any sanctions the West places on Russia will backfire.

The comments were the first Mr Putin has made since Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev last month and landed in Russia. Ukraine’s new government wants to put him on trial for the deaths of more than 80 people during protests in Kiev.

Tensions remain high in the strategic Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, with troops loyal to Moscow firing warning shots to ward off protesting Ukrainian soldiers.

Yet world markets seemed to recover from their fright over the situation, clawing back a large chunk of Monday’s stock losses.

Speaking from his residence outside Moscow, Mr Putin said he considered Mr Yanukovych to still be Ukraine’s leader and hopedthat Russia would not need to use force in predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.

But he did add that Mr Yanukovych has no political future and Russia gave him shelter only to save his life.

Mr Putin accused the West of using Mr Yanukovych’s decision in November to ditch a pact with the 28-nation European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia to encourage the protests that drove him from power.

Earlier in the day, the Kremlin said Mr Putin had ordered tens of thousands of Russian troops participating in military exercises near Ukraine’s border to return to their bases. The massive military exercise in western Russia involving 150,000 troops, hundreds of tanks and dozens of aircraft was supposed to wrap up anyway, so it was not clear if Mr Putin’s move was an attempt to heed the West’s call to de-escalate the crisis.

It came as US Secretary of State John Kerry was on his way to Kiev to meet the new Ukrainian leadership that deposed the pro-Russian Mr Yanukovych.

The Kremlin, which does not recognise the new Ukrainian leadership, insists it made the move in order to protect Russian installations in Ukraine and its citizens living there.

Yesterday Russian troops who had taken control of the Belbek air base in Crimea fired warning shots into the air as around 300 Ukrainian soldiers, who previously manned the airfield, demanded their jobs back.

About a dozen Russian soldiers at the base warned the Ukrainians, who were marching unarmed, not to approach. They fired several warning shots into the air and said they would shoot the Ukrainians if they continued to march toward them.

The shots reflected tensions running high in the Black Sea peninsula since Russian troops, estimated by Ukrainian authorities to be 16,000 strong, tightened their grip over the weekend on the Crimean peninsula.

In Crimea, a supposed Russian ultimatum for two Ukrainian warships to surrender or be seized passed peacefully as the two ships remained anchored in the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Vladimir Anikin later denied an ultimatum had been issued.

President Barack Obama has said that Russia is “on the wrong side of history” in Ukraine and its actions violate international law.