MOSCOW, March 26. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin sees Western countries as "initiators and instigators" of the conflict in Ukraine.

"An armed coup - that's where it all started. We were forced to protect the population of Crimea, and this way or another we ended up supporting Donbass. They pretend they had nothing to do with it. They are the initiators of this conflict and the instigators. And today they are handing over millions more munitions, hardware and so on," the president said, answering questions from host Pavel Zarubin.

Putin stressed that he had repeatedly spoken about this, adding that the former leadership of Ukraine could also be blamed for certain mistakes. "But it is their internal affair, of Ukraine itself. But staging a coup, besides a bloody one, - this is a completely different story," he went on to say.

According to Putin, the West is crossing all red and even deep-red lines by supplying weapons to the Kiev regime. "Yes, that’s what they are doing, they did it from the very start in 2014. When they facilitated the coup," the president said, responding to Zarubin's question who said that weapons supplies to Kiev, including depleted uranium munitions, meant crossing red and even deep-red lines.