Crimea-Kosovo Analogy Nonsense, Obama Says

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russian speakers had been threatened in Crimea - and dismissed any analogy between Western intervention in Kosovo in 1999 and Russia’s recent takeover of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

Analogies drawn by the Kremlin between the situation in Crimea and Kosovo made “absolutely no sense”, Mr Obama said.

“When I hear analogies to Kosovo, where you had thousands of people who were being slaughtered by their government, it’s a comparison that makes absolutely no sense,” he said.

“I think it is important for everybody to be clear and strip away some of the possible excuses for potential Russian action,” he added.

Speaking in The Hague following a nuclear security summit, Mr Obama said Russia’s actions were a sign of weakness, not strength.

“We [the United States] have considerable influence on our neighbours,” he said. "We generally don't need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them.”