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Putin points finger at Washington over Georgia conflict

29/08/2008

Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of helping to engineer Russia's conflict with Georgia.

In an interview for US broadcaster CNN the Russian prime minister said American citizens in the area had been ordered to orchestrate the brief war to aid the next president.

Mr Putin, largely regarded by the west as the real power in the Kremlin as opposed to the man he anointed as his presidential replacement – Dmitry Medvedev – said the US planned to provide a boost to whoever replaced George Bush in the White House out of John McCain or Barack Obama.

"The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US president," he told CNN.

The former two-term president went on to accuse Washington of training and arming Georgian fighters.

"The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian army," he claimed.

"Why... seek a difficult compromise solution in the peacekeeping process? It is easier to arm one of the sides and provoke it into killing another side. And the job is done."

The White House has reacted to Mr Putin's comments with scorn.

Spokeswoman Dana Perino said the Russian prime minister's claims were "patently false".

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

Tensions between the west and Russia have escalated on a daily basis since the latter sent troops into Georgia when Tbilisi began shelling breakaway region South Ossetia.

Moscow has since formally recognised the independence of South Ossetia and another breakaway Abkhazia, which has seen relations with Nato plummet to a cold war-era low.