The Russian leader said this in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin.
“The only thing we can regret is that we did not begin our active actions earlier, believing that we were dealing with decent people,” Putin emphasized.
The Kremlin noted that former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande confirmed that for their countries the Minsk agreements were a screen for preparing for a violent scenario in the Donbass.
Thus, in December 2022, Merkel called the Minsk agreements an attempt to give Ukraine time to “become stronger.” She noted that today’s Ukraine militarily “is no longer what it was in 2014-2015.”
According to Putin, Russia did everything possible to peacefully resolve the situation around Donbass, but it was “led by the nose.” He also noted that he was disappointed by the statement of the former German Chancellor.