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ByVladimirIsachenkov The Associated Press MOSCOW A defiant Pres- ident Vladimir Putin on Monday called the Ukrai- nian army a "NATO for- eign legion," reflecting his readiness to stand up to the West regardless of ris- ing economic costs, as Stan- dard & Poor's rating agency downgraded Russia's credit rating to junk. While the Russian ru- ble tumbled further on the news of the downgrade, Pu- tin's spokesman shrugged off the Western threat of more sanctions as "short- sighted." The Kremlin's uncom- promising stance is rooted in its desire to prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO by securing a broad autonomy for the rebellious provinces in the east. To avoid being called a party to the conflict, as Ukraine and the West see it, Russia is pushing the Ukrainian government to speak di- rectly to the rebels. The latest rebel offensive, which involved the deadly shelling of a strategic port city of Mariupol over the weekend, appeared aimed at pressuring Kiev into such talks. Speaking to students in St. Petersburg, Putin said the Ukrainian leadership was to blame for the up- surge in violence and ac- cused it of using civilians as "cannon fodder" in the conflict. "(Ukraine's army) is not even an army, it's a for- eign legion, in this case a NATO foreign legion," Putin said, adding that it's serv- ing the goal of "the geopo- litical containment of Rus- sia, which absolutely don't coincide with the national interests of the Ukrainian people." NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg dismissed the claim and accused Rus- sia of sending large num- bers of heavy weapons to the rebels. "We have seen a substantial increase in the flow of equipment from Russia to the separatists in Ukraine," he said. A Russian envoy at the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe rejected those claims, arguing that the rebels are using old Soviet- era weapons they seized from the Ukrainian arse- nals. Andrey Kelin, who spoke after the OSCE called a spe- cial session on the uptick in fighting, said the rebels are using "very old Soviet equipment" dating back to the mid-1960s. Ever since the separat- ist rebellion in eastern Ukraine flared up in April following Moscow's annex- ation of Crimea, Russia has denied Western accusations that it has backed the in- surgents with troops and weapons. But even though Ukrai- nian troops and the rebels use the same types of So- viet-built arms, the sheer number of heavy weapons in the rebels' possession has been seen in the West as a proof of Moscow's involve- ment in the conflict. From the onset of the conflict, which has claimed more than 5,100 since April, Russia urged the Ukrainian authorities to offer broad powers to the east and provide amnesty to the rebels. A cease-fire deal signed in September by represen- tatives of the government and the insurgents in- cluded some of those pro- visions along with a pledge to withdraw foreign fight- ers and place OSCE moni- tors on the Russian-Ukrai- nian border, but it has been violated by both parties and fighting has continued. A lull in fighting in De- cember raised hopes for a peaceful settlement, but hostilities escalated again in recent weeks as the reb- els launched a series of new offensives. Russia blamed the re- newed fighting on the Ukrainian side, saying it has tried to settle the con- flict by force. "They used a peace break exclusively to regroup their forces, and they started it all over again," Putin said. "It's a real tragedy." In Sunday's phone con- versation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Monday's call with French President Francois Hollande, Putin blamed the new round of hostilities on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stonewalling his proposal to pull back heavy weapons from the line of division agreed in September. The Kremlin said that Putin again em- phasized the need for Kiev to speak to the rebels. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov argued that the rebels had launched an offensive to protect the ar- eas under their control from Ukrainian artillery barrage. "To expect that they (the rebels) would simply rec- oncile themselves to being bombed would be naive," Lavrov said. "They started to act... with the goal of de- stroying Ukrainian army positions being used to shell populated areas." The tough statements came in the wake of West- ern threats that Russia would face further sanc- tions for its actions follow- ing the shelling of Mariu- pol, where 30 people were killed by rocket fire on Sat- urday. Donetsk, the main rebel stronghold, was wracked by artillery explosions throughout the day, but there was no fighting in Mariupol on Monday. A road leading out of the city into rebel territory was closed off by Ukrainian forces, making it unclear whether the rebels had ad- vanced closer to the city outskirts. The city streets were quiet as the families of those killed Sunday gath- ered to bury their dead. Separatist leaders ini- tially announced over the weekend that they had be- gun an offensive on Mariu- pol, but quickly backtracked and blamed Ukraine for the carnage after the extent of civilian casualties became known. The OSCE said the shelling of Mariupol came from rebel-controlled ter- ritory. Fighting near Mariupol has raised fears that the rebels could try to seize the city to build a land corridor into Crimea. President Barack Obama said Sunday that Washing- ton would work with its Eu- ropean partners to "ratchet up the pressure on Russia" in response to the latest vi- olence. EU foreign minis- ters will hold an extraordi- nary session on Thursday to discuss the situation in Ukraine. Lavrov warned the West against using the events to "whip up anti-Russian hys- teria," and Putin's spokes- man Dmitry Peskov dis- missed the threat of more sanctions as "destructive and short-sighted." "Such threats and blackmail haven't succeeded in forc- ing Russia to change its continuous stance, and they never will," Peskov said. The Russian currency tumbled by nearly 7 per- cent to about 68.5 rubles to the dollar on the news of Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade the nation's credit grade by one notch to junk status. 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