"This is not the army, per se, this is a foreign proxy, in this case a foreign NATO legion, which, of course, doesn't pursue the objective of national interests of Ukraine.
"They have entirely different goals, and they are tied with the achievement of the geopolitical goals of containing Russia, which absolutely does not fall in place with the national interests of the Ukrainian people," Putin said on Monday.
"We often say: the Ukrainian army, the Ukrainian army. But in fact, who's fighting there? Indeed, there are, in part, official units of armed forces, but for the most part it's the so-called 'volunteer nationalist battalions,'" Putin added.
His defiant tone comes as Russian-backed rebels launched an assault on the vital Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, killing 30 people. Over the weekend, the New York Times noted that Ukraine and NATO have flagged "Russian troops in unmarked uniforms apparently joining the separatists in the assaults on Ukrainian positions..."
at http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-ukraines-army-is-a-nato-proxy-aiming-to-contain-russia-2015-1#ixzz3PxRxQvyK
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