President Putin: Reconciliation between Russia and Ukraine is inevitable

According to RIA Novosti, in the documentary "Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 years" broadcast on the TV channel "Russia 1", President Putin spoke frankly about important events during his presidential term.

Regarding the special military operation, President Putin said that reconciliation between Russia and Ukraine is inevitable:

“It seems to me that this is inevitable, despite all the tragedies we are experiencing now. It is just a matter of time,” President Putin said.

According to the Russian leader, Moscow does not need to use nuclear weapons in special military operations.

Explaining why the operation was not launched earlier, Mr. Putin said that launching a special military operation in 2014 was “unrealistic,” because Russia was not ready for such a direct confrontation with the entire West. Moreover, Moscow could not make any drastic decisions regarding Ukraine:

“And we cannot start any sudden actions without doing the appropriate work in the fields of security, building up the armed forces, and the economy and finance,” President Putin said.

In addition, Russia did not establish a special military operation earlier because it wanted to resolve the issue peacefully.

“We had no specific preparations for this. We sincerely wanted to resolve the Donbass issue by peaceful means. But it turned out that the other side thought and acted differently,” President Putin said.

In the future, according to Mr. Putin, Moscow needs to take into account the experience of implementing the Minsk Agreement when signing any agreement with Kiev.

Referring to his speech at the Munich Conference in 2007, President Putin said he had issued a warning to the West: “Russia will either be independent and sovereign, or it will not exist. And this is what I want to convey to our partners, in the hope that they will listen and somehow adjust their attitude towards Russia.”

However, according to Mr. Putin, Western countries did not react properly to the speech in Munich, “that is, they heard everything, but they did not react appropriately. Ultimately, this is the cause of today's tragic events in Ukraine.”