Putin accuses US of supporting separatist militants inside Russia

Vladimir Putin has accused the US of directly supporting separatist militants in Russia's North Caucasus region against whom Moscow fought a brutal war.

The remarks, made in a two-hour documentary film broadcast on Russian state television on Sunday evening, appeared to be aimed at justifying the Russian president's actions in Ukraine and highlighted his belief that the West is out to weaken Russia.

"Our special services documented direct contacts between fighters from the North Caucasus and US special forces in Azerbaijan," said Mr Putin in The President, which takes stock of the Russian leader's 15 years in power based on extensive interviews with him.

Mr Putin said the contacts, discovered through tapped phones, took place in the early 2000s and showed that the US helped the insurgents with matters such as transport.

The claim is the latest in a litany of accusations against the US, which has been building for years but intensified since Moscow's falling-out with the west over its annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and its subsequent involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

It comes on the heels of a US warning last week of renewed Russian military activity close to separatist rebel-held areas in Ukraine's fractious Donbas region, and with the Kremlin fuming over Washington's move to assist Ukrainian forces by supplying military trainers.

Mr Putin's allegation of US support for rebels inside Russia at least 10 years ago gained additional relevance after Moscow's security forces publicly faced off last week with Ramzan Kadyrov, the former Chechen warlord on whom the Russian president has relied to keep the restive North Caucasian territory relatively stable.

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However, within 10 days, the Federal Security Bureau, successor organisation to the KGB, had received a defiant letter from their US counterparts. "We have had and will have relations with all opposition forces in Russia, we believe we have the right to do this, and we will do this in the future," Mr Putin quoted the letter as saying.

He cited the alleged US support for the North Caucasus militants as an example of co-operation between western governments and "terrorists".

"Some people, particularly special forces of western countries, think that if someone works to destabilise their main geopolitical opponent - which, as we realise now, in their minds has always been Russia - that this is overall to their advantage," he said. "It turned out that that's not true."

The US State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

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