Putin denies Russian troops in Ukraine
The truce deals include Ukraine regaining full control of its border with Russia
MOSCOW (AFP) - President Vladimir Putin insisted Thursday that Russia has no regular troops in eastern Ukraine but admitted that some people have been carrying out military tasks there.
Putin s comments during his annual news conference raised eyebrows after months of bluntly denying US and NATO charges that Moscow had any direct presence or role in eastern Ukraine beyond providing political and moral support for pro-Russian rebels there.
"We never said there weren t people (in Ukraine) who work on resolving various issues there, including in the military sphere," Putin said when a Ukrainian journalist brought up the question of two captured Russians currently on trial in Kiev.
"That doesn t mean there are regular Russian troops (there)," Putin said during the three-hour news conference. "Feel the difference."
NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said Putin s remarks confirmed what the US-led military alliance believed all along -- that Russia had a military presence in eastern Ukraine.
"We have stated again and again that Russia is present with military personnel in eastern Ukraine and that is based on our own intelligence sources," Stoltenberg said as he met Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
"There are many different sources telling the same thing -- that Russia has a military presence in eastern Ukraine."
Stoltenberg said Putin s remarks also meant that Moscow clearly had "a special responsibility" in ensuring implementation of the Minsk peace accords aimed at halting the conflict that erupted in April last year.
The truce deals include Ukraine regaining full control of its border with Russia.
Putin last year acknowledged Russian troops were in Crimea before Moscow seized the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine, after initially denying it.
Two men, who say they are Russian military officers, have been on trial in Ukraine since September, after being captured in the east of the former Soviet nation and charged with terrorism.
The Russian military denied they were active servicemen.
