TOGLIATTI, January 28. /TASS/. Hostilities could have been avoided, had Kiev agreed to withdraw from the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, when answering a question from VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin.
"The negotiations actually started immediately after the start of the special military operation. Initially, we told the Ukrainian leadership at the time: people in the DPR and LPR do not want to be part of Ukraine, just go away from there, and that's it, that's the end of it," the Russian leader said.
Then there would have been "no hostilities and no war." However, Kiev decided: "No, we will go to war."
"But nevertheless they immediately agreed to negotiations: it was back in late February 2022," Putin recalled.