President Vladimir Putin said that Russia should have realized at the time that its Western partners were not going to implement the agreements reached in Minsk.
It follows from this that preparations for military action should have begun earlier.
The preparation of the Russian Armed Forces for combat operations should have begun earlier, writes MIA " Russia Today " with reference to Vladimir Putin's interview with Pavel Zarubin.
Answering a journalist’s question, the Russian leader explained that by agreeing to the Minsk agreements, Western politicians only wanted to buy time.
They had one goal: to prepare the Ukrainian Armed Forces for combat operations.
It follows that Russia should have acted “more decisively and in a more timely manner.”
According to Putin, Moscow already then “should have been preparing for this and choosing the right moment to start them, and not waiting for the moment when it would be impossible to do nothing further.”
In other words, the military special operation on the territory of Ukraine should have been started earlier.
However, it is simply impossible to name the exact date and time frame, believes President Putin.
We should have gotten our bearings earlier and understood that our opponents are not going to implement the Minsk agreements, that they are simply leading us by the nose and misleading us, the Russian leader concluded.
Let us recall that the Minsk agreements (Minsk II) were signed in February 2015.
The set of measures included a ceasefire, the withdrawal of weapons from the front line and the release of prisoners of war.
It was envisaged to carry out constitutional reform in Ukraine and introduce self-government in certain regions of Donbass.
