EU silent on reported Putin threat against east Europe
Picture: AFP
Brussels. The EU on Thursday refused to confirm a report that President Vladimir Putin warned Ukraine’s leader that Russian troops could invade eastern European capitals within two days if ordered, AFP reported.
The German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung reported that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso during a meeting last Friday that Putin had made the threat in a recent conversation.
“If I wanted, Russian troops could not only be in Kyiv in two days, but in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw or Bucharest, too,” the paper quoted Putin as saying, citing an account of the Barroso-Poroshenko meeting given by the EU diplomatic service.
EU Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen told journalists when asked about the report: “We will not conduct diplomacy in the media or discuss extracts of what are confidential conversations.”
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