RT reported that at his annual year-end press conference on December 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that if he had known how events would unfold, Russia should have been more prepared for such actions.
Russia deployed troops across the border in February 2022, accusing the Ukrainian government of outrightly rejecting all agreements and increasing shelling of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Just weeks later, the two sides came close to reaching a ceasefire, but Kiev backed down under pressure from the West, encouraged by promises of unlimited military support.
“You know, if I could look back at 2022, knowing what is happening now, what do I think? The decision that was made in early 2022 should have been taken earlier,” Putin said during the question-and-answer session of the press conference. “And secondly, if we had known in advance, we would have started to systematically prepare for these operations, including special military operations.”
The Russian leader noted that the events in Crimea following the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 unfolded spontaneously, and the 2022 operations also began without significant preparation.
“Why did we launch the operation? Because we cannot stand still and wait for the situation to get worse for us – that is the reason,” Putin explained.
President Putin recalled that the Ukrainian authorities have clearly stated that they will not comply with the Minsk agreements and have made statements about the possession of weapons of mass destruction. According to him, Russia cannot continue to tolerate the killing of civilians in Kiev's so-called "anti-terrorist operation" in Donbass.
“Eight years of war and the destruction of the population in Donbass… they abandoned the Minsk agreements. Moreover, we see a real military occupation of these areas and the systematic destruction of everything connected with Russia,” Putin said.
“We had to act. If we had known in advance what was going to happen, we would have prepared systematically and seriously. That is what I mean,” Putin added.
The Russian president also stressed the complexity of the ongoing conflict, saying that it is difficult to predict how long it will last. “Combat operations are very complex, so it is difficult and unnecessary to make predictions. We are moving towards solving the main tasks, outlined at the very beginning of the special military operation, such as neutralization, demilitarization of Ukraine," Putin noted.
At the same time, Russia has never ruled out the possibility of negotiations. President Putin reiterated that Moscow remains ready for dialogue with the legitimate authorities in Kiev without any preconditions, except those agreed in Istanbul in 2022.
According to those preliminary agreements, Ukraine remains neutral and non-aligned, and there are certain restrictions on the deployment of foreign weapons. Mr. Putin also noted that such negotiations must respect the realities that have developed on the ground since then.
