Russia only sent troops and tanks to drive Georgian forces out of South Ossetia after President George Bush failed to put pressure on Georgia's president to stop his attacks on the breakaway territory, Vladimir Putin said yesterday. The Russian prime minister told a group of western journalists and experts on Russia that he held two meetings with the US leader during the Beijing Olympics as the crisis began to unfold, but received insufficient assurances from him.
"I met him again at the stadium. I can't tell you in detail the content of the conversation, but I had the feeling that his administration wouldn't do anything about stopping the conflict," Putin said. Russian tanks were then ordered to move on the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.
It is the first time that Putin has blamed the US for allowing the crisis to erupt. He was polite about Bush, saying he respected his integrity, but he suggested that the president's advisers had taken the key decisions. "It's a court which makes a king. Maybe the court thought the king shouldn't intervene," he said.