Hillary Clinton has kept up the pressure on Vladimir Putin a day after comparing the Russian president's actions in Crimea to those of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.
Ms Clinton sought to clarify the remarks she made at a closed fundraising luncheon on Tuesday that Mr Putin's actions are similar what happened in the Nazi era in Czechoslovakia and Romania.
During the fundraiser in Long Beach, she was quoted as saying: "Now if this sounds familiar, it's what Hitler did back in the '30s.
"Hitler kept saying, 'They're not being treated right. I must go and protect my people.' And that's what's gotten everybody so nervous."
Responding a day later to a question over those remarks, Ms Clinton said she was not making a comparison.
But she said Russia's actions were "reminiscent" of claims Germany made in the 1930s, when the Nazis said they needed to protect German minorities in Poland and elsewhere in Europe.
"The claims by President Putin and other Russians that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into eastern Ukraine because they had to protect the Russian minorities, that is reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland and Czechoslovakia and elsewhere throughout Europe," she said.
"I just want everybody to have a little historic perspective.
"I am not making a comparison, certainly.
"But I am recommending that we perhaps can learn from this tactic that has been used before," she said in an address at the UCLA.
Ms Clinton, a former Secretary of State and potential 2016 presidential contender, renewed her criticism of Mr Putin amid the Ukraine crisis and Russia's military involvement in Crimea.
Ms Clinton described Mr Putin as "a tough guy with a thin skin".
She said he wants to "re-Sovietize" the periphery of Russia but is actually squandering the potential of his nation and "threatening instability and even the peace of Europe".
Mr Putin has maintained he was protecting ethnic Russians by moving troops into Crimea.
news.sky
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