Russia on wrong side of history: Kerry

The US Secretary of State failed in convincing Russia against its military action in Ukraine

US Secretary of State John Kerry, having failed in convincing Russia against its military action in Ukraine, said that Moscow was on the wrong side of history.

"The (Russian) President (Vladimir Putin) may have his version of history, but I believe that he and Russia, for what they have done, are on the wrong side of history," Kerry said during a function at the State Department yesterday.

"I must say I was really struck and somewhat surprised and even disappointed by the interpretations in the facts as they were articulated by the President," Kerry said soon after Putin's speech in Moscow.

"I'm not going to go into the details except to say that that would be as egregious as any step that I can think of that can be taken by a country in today's world, particularly by a country like Russia, where so much is at stake. Now I hope that's not going to be the case," Kerry said.

Responding to a question, Kerry said Putin in his speech did say that he did not envision a struggle between East and West over the issue, that there was a huge historic connection between Russians and Ukrainians, that he wanted to see if they could resolve the future in a peaceful way.

"I don't want to start laying out a whole series of specifics about the option until we measure where we are obviously and put that to the test," he added.

"But today is egregious enough, when you raise this nationalistic fervor which could, in fact, infect in ways that could be very, very dangerous. All you have to do is go back and read in history of the lead up to World War II and the passions that were released with that kind of nationalistic fervor," he said.

Kerry said what is clear to him is that international law means something, and it means something because the international community came together over a period of time to give it that meaning.

"There is well-established law about countries seceding from a part of their own existing country, which is supposed to happen according to their constitution and their legal process, and if that's not available to them, then through certain rights exercised in the international community, but not at the butt of a gun with a bunch of troops coming into a country to augment troops already there and then have the president of that country suggest there were no Russian forces in Crimea," he argued.