St. Petersburg/Strelna – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday said Russia’s action in Crimea had been a “proportional” response to Ukrainian action.

“We believe that there was an attempt to speak to us in a language of force, and so we made a proportional response, acting within the bounds of the same logic. But I hope that this will never again be the case under any circumstances anywhere,” Putin said at a meeting in St. Petersburg with the chiefs of global news agencies.