Putin: by defending South Ossetia, Russia stopped NGOs from breaking RF down

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has stated that some nongovernmental and non-commercial organizations (NGOs and NCOs) in Russia had been preparing a breakaway of a number of republics should Russia had failed to defend South Ossetia.

Earlier, Konstantin Kochiev, adviser of South Ossetia's President, had noticed that for Russia keeping peace and stability in South Ossetia was not only the issue of its obligations adopted under the process of peaceful settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, but also a serious factor of keeping its own interests of defending its citizens and non-admission of spreading instability over the Russian Northern Caucasus.

"We've fixed even establishment of such NGOs in some republics of Northern Caucasus, which raised, under the pretext of non-defence of South Ossetia, the issue of breakaway from the Russian Federation," Prime Minister Putin said at his meeting with participants of the "Valdai" International Debate Club.

He has emphasized that should Russia had failed to defend South Ossetia, it could have received "the second blow", and "the swing of Northern Caucasus" could have started, the RIA "Novosti" reports.

Making comments on the reproaches that Russia had used excessive force, Vladimir Putin said that "we've started to act this way, because the infrastructure, which was used for the attack, was outside Tskhinvali." He has explained that the point was in command points of the armed forces, radar stations and armament warehouses of arms, the ITAR-TASS reports. "I've heard about inadequate use of force. And what is adequate? When they use tanks, heavy artillery and salvo fire installations against us, what should we do? Use slingshots, or what?" asked Mr Putin.

He has added that during WW II the allies did not stop at German borders but reached Berlin, "to root the aggression out." "The aggressor must be punished," he added.