Putin defends action in Georgia
He said Russians couldn't be expected to "hang our heads" after the ex-Soviet state attacked.
MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin insisted yesterday that Russia had no intention of encroaching on the sovereignty of Georgia after a brief war that left Russian troops in control of two breakaway Georgian regions.
Putin also aggressively defended the decision to invade Georgia, saying Russia had to act when Georgia attacked South Ossetia on Aug. 7.
"In this situation were we supposed to just wipe away bloody snot and hang our heads?" he asked a visiting group of Western scholars and journalists over lunch.
Putin often uses earthy language to make a point.
Striking out at the West for questioning Russia's use of overwhelming force, he said Russia could not have been expected to use a "pocketknife" or "slingshot" to counter Georgia's U.S.-trained army.
His comments came as an international human-rights group said that Georgia's assault was far less deadly than had been asserted.
Fewer than 100 civilians died in South Ossetia during last month's war, Human Rights Watch said yesterday. Russia and its South Ossetian allies have contended about 1,500 civilians were killed.
Putin also said the West was wrong to say that Russia has imperial ambitions. Russia has "no wish or grounds to encroach on the sovereignty of former Soviet republics," he said.
Speaking to the same Western group earlier in the day, South Ossetia's leader said union with Russia was his region's goal. The statement threatened to undermine part of Russia's justification for military intervention.
Eduard Kokoity quickly reversed himself.
"I have probably been misunderstood," he was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying. "We are not going to relinquish our independence, which we won at the cost of colossal sacrifices, and South Ossetia is not going to become part of Russia."
Russia recognized South Ossetia as an independent nation, along with another separatist region, Abkhazia, after last month's war with Georgia over the regions. Both have had de facto independence for more than a decade since breaking away from Georgian control in the early 1990s.
Many have expected that Russia would ultimately seek to absorb South Ossetia and unite its residents with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov quickly countered Kokoity's initial statement.
"South Ossetia is not intending to link up with anybody," he told reporters in Warsaw, Poland. "They have understood that without a declaration of independence, they cannot ensure their own security."
War broke out after Georgian forces launched an offensive to retake South Ossetia.