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Putin says Moscow regarded Ukraine same as US would feel about Russian foothold in Mexico

The Russian president says that an anti-Russian foothold in Ukraine is being created

ST. PETERSBURG, June 17. /TASS/. Threats that Russia faced from Ukraine are similar to what the US would feel about a Moscow foothold in Mexico, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.

"They started to create an anti-Russian foothold in Ukraine. Let’s try the same and start creating an anti-US foothold on US borders - in Mexico. Do you realize what would happen? For some reason, it doesn’t occur to anyone to do something like that to America," he said.

"We removed our military bases from Cuba a while back. You know, no one even gives it a thought and doesn’t want to. But what we get is these threats being created for us," the president said.

Putin said Moscow "a hundred times, a thousand times" proposed to reach an agreement.

"That didn’t happen. Why is this position? Where does this disparaging attitude to everyone, including us, come from? It’s from a contrived sense of greatness that grew out of the Soviet breakup little by little. That’s entirely understandable," he said.

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