PRESIDENT OBAMA WARNS RUSSIA TO WITHDRAW THEIR TROOPS FROM UKRAINE.

US President Barack Obama has urged Russia to stop
“intimidating” Ukraine and reduce the number of troops it has on
its border.
He also called on Russia to “de-escalate the situation” and begin
negotiations with Kiev.
Russia is believed to have massed a force of several thousand
troops close to the eastern frontier of Ukraine.
Obama said it may“be an effort to intimidate Ukraine, or
it may be that Russia has additional plans.”
In a separate development, ousted President Viktor Yanukovych
has called for a national referendum to determine each region’s
“status within Ukraine”.
He fled to Russia last month after massive demonstrations against
him and clashes between protesters and police in which more than
100 people died. The Kremlin says the new government in Kiev
came to power illegally.
President Obama, in the interview recorded before he left Italy on
Thursday, said President Vladimir Putin had been “willing to show
a deeply-held grievance about what he considers to be the loss of
the Soviet Union”.
But he warned that the Russian leader should not “revert back to
the kinds of practices that were so prevalent during the Cold War”.
“I think there’s a strong sense of Russian nationalism and a sense
that somehow the West has taken advantage of Russia in the past,
” Obama said. “What I have repeatedly said is that he may be
entirely misreading the West. He’s certainly misreading American
foreign policy.”
Obama said the US has “no interest in circling Russia” and “no
interest in Ukraine beyond letting Ukrainian people make their own
decisions about their own lives.”