WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama in an interview aired on Friday said that Russia must “move back” its troops from the Ukraine border and start negotiating.

Obama told CBS News that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to assemble forces on the border may “simply be an effort to intimidate Ukraine, or it may be that they’ve got additional plans.”

Although estimates of troop numbers vary vastly, Obama said that “to de-escalate the situation” Russia should “move back those troops and begin negotiations directly with the Ukrainian government as well as the international community.”

He also said Putin had been “willing to show a deeply held grievance about what he considers to be the loss of the Soviet Union,” and the Russian leader should not “revert back to the kinds of practices that, you know, were so prevalent during the Cold War”.

“I think there’s a strong sense of Russian nationalism and a sense that somehow the West has taken advantage of Russia in the past and that he wants to in some fashion, you know, reverse that or make up for that,” Obama said, referring to Putin..

“What I have repeatedly said is that he may be entirely misreading the West. He’s certainly misreading American foreign policy,” the US leader told CBS.

“We have no interest in circling Russia and we have no interest in Ukraine beyond letting Ukrainian people make their own decisions about their own lives.”

Obama leaves Italy for Saudi Arabia

President Obama left Italy for Saudi Arabia on Friday – the last stop of his six-day tour of Europe and the Middle East.

Obama’s plane, Air Force One, left Rome’s Fiumicino airport at 0955 GMT, an AFP photographer travelling with the president said.

The US leader was expected to spend Friday evening in talks with Saudi King Abdullah on a royal estate outside the capital Riyadh.

The visit comes amid strategic differences over Iran and Syria, which are straining a historic alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Obama was expected to fly back to the United States on Saturday.

In Rome on Thursday, Obama met with Pope Francis for the first time and held talks with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The Italian news agency ANSA reported that John Elkann, the chairman of Italian automaker Fiat, attended a dinner on Thursday at the US ambassador’s residence with Obama.

Fiat bought a majority stake in US car maker Chrysler earlier this year and is planning to list the newly merged Fiat Chrysler conglomerate on Wall Street in October.