MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a televised meeting with officials on Wednesday that there was reason to believe Western intelligence agencies were involved in what he said were sabotage and terrorist acts carried out by Ukraine.
In a meeting of the Kremlin’s Security Council with the heads of the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow said it had annexed last year, Putin accused Ukraine of committing crimes against Russian administrators, security personnel, journalists and teachers with the help of Western intelligence services.
Russia frequently accuses Ukraine of killing civilians with shelling in parts of Ukraine that Russia controls, and in Russian border regions close to Ukraine.
“There is every reason to say that the resources of third countries, Western intelligence services, are engaged in the preparation of such sabotage and acts of terrorism,” Putin said.
Putin was speaking three days after the Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, was killed in a bombing in St Petersburg, for which Russian officials have blamed Ukraine.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
