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Putin regrets that Russia did not start active actions in Ukraine earlier

Russia tried for a long time to resolve the conflict peacefully and relied on the honesty of its opponents, the president said

© Kristina Kormilitsyna/TASS

MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/. Russia should have started active actions in Ukraine earlier, but it tried for a long time to resolve the conflict peacefully and relied on the honesty of its opponents, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin, the video of which was uploaded to the Kremlin's Telegram channel.

"The only thing we can regret is that we did not start our active actions earlier, believing that we were dealing with decent people," the president said, describing the situation around Ukraine.

Putin went on to say that at the first stage, Russia tried to settle the conflict in Donbas "by peaceful means, namely the Minsk Accords."

"It turned out later that we were being deceived in this regard, because both the former German chancellor and the former president of France admitted straightforwardly in the public that they never planned to fulfill the agreements. Instead, they were buying time to deliver more weapons to the Kiev regime, which is exactly what they did," the Russian leader said.

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Ukraine crisis Foreign policy Ukraine Vladimir Putin

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