RUSSIA’S PRESIDENT VLADIMIR Putin has said that his country’s military is unstoppable.
Interfax quotes Putin as making the remark in the buildup to next week’s Defenders of the Fatherland Day.
“No one should have the illusion that they can gain military superiority over Russia, put any kind of pressure on it.
“We will always have an adequate answer for any such adventures.”
He said that the country’s soldiers had proven themselves.
Russia currently has 835,000 active personnel and 2 million reservists.
Our soldiers and officers have proven that they are ready to act decisively smoothly, professionally and courageously, to perform the most difficult non-standard tasks, as befits a modern hardened combat-ready army that protects their traditions and military duty.
The comments come as the fragile ceasefire in Ukraine looks to be crumbling.
“The ceasefire has been violated several times,” French President Francois Hollande said in a joint Paris media conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The EU, US and Ukraine accuse Russia of being behind the hostilities. Moscow denies directly supporting the rebels.
While Merkel and Hollande met, pro-Russian rebels were taking victorious photos of each other in the east Ukrainian town of Debaltseve, a strategic transport hub they overran this week despite the ceasefire coming into force last Sunday.
The town was a graveyard of burnt-out Ukrainian army vehicles, craters and shattered buildings, AFP reports.
The battle for the town had involved non-stop shelling before the rebels stormed it for street-to-street fighting.
With reporting from AFP
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