Kremlin Official: Putin's 'I Can Take Kiev In Two Weeks' Remark Was Taken Out Of Context

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin talking during 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Benouville Castle, France. Regis Duvignau / Reuters

Kremlin Says Putin's 'I Can Take Kiev' Remark Misquoted -- USA Today

Against a backdrop of the start of fledgling peace talks over Ukraine, a top Kremlin aide accused EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso Tuesday of breaching diplomatic confidentiality and of taking words out of context by quoting President Vladimir Putin as saying that he could be in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, within two weeks if he wanted.

The Russian president allegedly made the comments during a phone conversation about the Ukraine crisis with Barroso, who reportedly related them to colleagues at last week's European Union summit.

"If I want to, I can take Kiev in two weeks," Italy's La Repubblica newspaper quoted Putin as saying, implying that this could be the fallout if the EU stepped up sanctions against Russia.

In Moscow, Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy adviser, pushed back strongly, telling reporters that the president's statement, as apparently quoted by Barroso, was "taken out of context and carried a completely different meaning," the Russian ITAR-TASS news agency reports.

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