Putin admits: The West has outplayed Russia in Ukraine. In a certain way

The West has outplayed Russia in Ukraine in a certain sense since 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the meeting of the Board of the Defence Ministry.

If the Ukrainian authorities "and their masters in the West” had agreed to implement the Minsk agreements, the conflict between Kyiv and the east of Ukraine could have been normalised, and Ukraine's territorial integrity would have been restored in full.

"They didn't go for it, they immediately started a war there," Vladimir Putin said.

The Russian side was not doing anything at first, but was forced to get involved to protect people from extermination.

The West was watching the development of the criss in Ukraine "with pleasure." In this sense, the West outplayed Russia, Putin noted. All that forced Russia to respond, and Western leaders publicly acknowledged later that no one was going to follow the Minsk Accords.

"Western leaders acknowledged that it was just a screen to build a modern army for Ukraine. For what? This is the second part of the Merlaison ballet — to drag Ukraine into NATO,” Putin said. Ukraine's accession to NATO is unacceptable to Russia, even if it happens in 10-15 years, he added. 

At the end of his speech at the board meeting, Putin noted that "history will put everything in its place,” but Russia "will not give up what it has.”

In 2022, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that the Minsk Accords were concluded to "give Ukraine time” to become stronger. According to her, it was clear to all parties to the Minsk agreements that the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine had not been resolved, but only frozen. The agreements could only give Kyiv "precious time,” Merkel said. Angela Merkel was one of the signatories of Minks-2 agreements in 2015.

Former French President Francois Hollande, who also participated in the conclusion of the agreements, later said that the Minsk agreements could be called an attempt to give Kyiv time to strengthen its army.