It was the EU policy that caused what happened in Ukraine - Vladimir Putin

It was the EU policy that caused what happened in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

According to the Russian president, it was the West that organized the coup d'état in Kiev in 2014, which led to the need for Russia to protect Crimeans and then provide assistance to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

According to Vladimir Putin, the EU's failure to implement the Minsk agreements forced Russia to recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

According to Putin, the North Atlantic Alliance deceived Russia by promising "not to take a single step to the East."

“Now European politicians are trying to shift the blame from the sick to the healthy, to show that Russia is aggressive. No! This is their policy. From the very first step, when they lied to us that there would never be an expansion, NATO would not take a single step – presumably to the East,” Putin noted.

Vladimir Putin claims that the situation on the battlefield gives Russia the right to say that the conflict is coming to an end.