In an interview with the German television channel ARD/ZDF in the runup to the 60th V-E anniversary, Putin assured that the Russian government had never tried to interfere in Ukraine's domestic affairs by campaigning for some particular presidential candidate. He described his frequent visits to Ukraine during the presidential race there at the end of last year as "intensification of contacts," asked for by the government then in power. Russia could not possibly turn that request down, he added.
Putin then went on to say that the Russian government's relations with the present authorities of Ukraine were just as good as they had been with their predecessors. The same holds true for Georgia, he said.
The previous Georgian government, which was anything but pro-Russian, enjoyed wide support from Western leaders, who touted it as a model of democratic rule, President Putin recalled. But why then did it have to be deposed, he wondered.
In an interview with the French TV broadcaster France 3, the Russian President spoke about NATO's influence on former Soviet republics, including Ukraine and Georgia. "This doesn't annoy us. Russia, too, is developing relations with NATO... [But] we believe that NATO's technical expansion [eastward] doesn't help to improve the situation in the world in terms of enhancing its security," pointed out Putin.
"There are modern-day threats we know about, [such as] terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But I can't figure out how purely technical expansion, by taking in our Baltic neighbors, for instance, can really provide greater security," he said.
In view of NATO's ongoing expansion, Russia will now have to relocate its sensitive technologies and defense industry facilities based in Ukraine or other would-be member states, President Putin said, adding that the relocation would be quite costly for the Russian government to bring about. But the Ukrainian authorities, too, will get their fair share of problems as the prospective outsourcing of Russian assets may force them to curtail research and production in a whole number of sectors, he warned.
In the runup to the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, the Russian leader has had interviews with a record-high number of foreign news media. He has so far replied to a total of 120 questions from foreign reporters.
