Putin: Russia's inaction towards Ukraine in 2022 would be a crime

Russia's inaction towards what is happening around Ukraine in 2022 would be a crime against the interests of the Russian Federation and its people. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this in an interview with VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin. An excerpt was published on his Telegram channel. TASS reports on this.

"A crime can be committed either by action or inaction. Our inaction would be a crime against the interests of Russia and its people," Putin said, commenting on his words that the special military operation should have been launched even earlier, since Western countries and Ukraine have clearly demonstrated a lack of intention to implement the Minsk agreements, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been given time to prepare for combat operations.

The Russian leader noted that it is not just difficult, but generally impossible to name the exact date and time when the SMO should have been launched.

"In any case, we should have made up our mind earlier and understood that our opponents are not going to implement the Minsk Agreements, that they are simply misleading us," Putin said, recalling that Western leaders later admitted this and publicly stated that they were going to give time for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to rearm, so that they could prepare for future military actions. "And if they gave them the opportunity to prepare for future military actions, it means they were counting on them starting. This means that they assumed that there would be military actions. And we, understanding this, should have acted more decisively and in a timely manner, should have prepared for this and chosen the right moment to start military actions, and not wait for the moment when it was no longer possible to do nothing," the head of the Russian state said.