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Russian president Vladimir Putin: We talk about the Ukrainian army, the Ukrainian army, but who is really fighting there? Photograph: Mikhail Klimentyev/Ria Novosti /Kremlin Pool/EPA

Russia has denounced western threats to impose further sanctions over its role in Ukraines conflict, and claimed that government forces fighting Moscow-backed separatists there are largely a foreign Nato legion.

The Kremlin sharpened its rhetoric as EU foreign ministers prepared for emergency talks on Ukraine, which are likely to highlight divisions over how strongly the EU should punish Russia for supporting the militants.

We talk about the Ukrainian army, the Ukrainian army, but who is really fighting there? Russian president Vladimir Putin said yesterday.

In part, its official units of the armed forces, but to a significant degree its so-called volunteer nationalist battalions. In effect, its not an army, its a foreign legion, in this case a foreign Nato legion, which, of course, is not pursuing the nationalist interests of Ukraine. It has totally different goals, connected to achieving the geopolitical goal of containing Russia.

Mr Putin claims that the past 14 months of upheaval in Ukraine, from the protests that ousted Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovich to the current war in the east, is a bid to weaken Russia by the US and some EU states.

Ukraines volunteer battalions are the most fervently patriotic units in its armed forces, contain relatively few foreigners, and say their countrys uprising and conflict are part of a fight against corruption and Moscows influence.

Mr Putins attack seemed intended to suggest equivalence between Ukraines servicemen and the insurgents who control much of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces and rely heavily on Russian fighters and weaponry. Moscow rejects as lies mounting evidence of its extensive provision of arms and manpower to the rebels.

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg called Mr Putins claims nonsense.

The foreign forces in Ukraine are Russian, so I think that is, in a way, the problem, that there are Russian forces in Ukraine and Russia backs the separatists with equipment, he said.

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Ukraine s volunteer battalions a Nato legion, Putin claims