MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/. The disingenuous and outright hostile attitudes taken by Ukraine, Germany and France toward the Minsk accords and the related peace process have proven that Russia’s decision to launch the special military operation was correct, Russian Security Council First Deputy Secretary Rashid Nurgaliyev said in an interview to media outlet aif.ru.

"Could such behavior surprise us? Hardly. It has long been obvious that what was considered bad form in enlightened Europe of the XVIII-XIX centuries is now the principle of behavior of the leaders of Western countries," Nurgaliyev said in commenting on the confessions of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande about the real goals of the Minsk accords. He recounted that the effectively fictitious nature of these agreements was also recognized by former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko.

"All of this proves once again that the decision to start the special military operation was the correct one," the senior security official asserted.

He added that Merkel and Hollande's statements "clearly demonstrated what the words and deeds of representatives of the 'civilized West' are worth." At the same time, Nurgaliyev pointed out, while "not allowing the Ukrainian leadership to fulfill the agreements, the West blamed Russia for their failure."

"The years of regular meetings within the framework of the trilateral contact group, discussions of the Steinmeier Formula, meetings in the Normandy format with the aim of achieving peace in Ukraine turned out to be an exercise in ‘going through the motions’ by both the leadership of Kiev and its patrons in the West. All of them were from the start not aiming at achieving a political settlement, but rather at arming Ukraine and preparing it for war with Russia," Nurgaliyev concluded.