Vladimir Putin has outlined the “trigger point” that prompted Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian President kicked off the bloody conflict in February 2022 in an action that has led to a wide array of sanctions and vilifications from Western nations.
Speaking to Tucker Carlson in a bombshell two-hour interview, Putin spoke about the “moment he decided he had to invade Ukraine”.
He cited the 2014 popular uprising in Ukraine that saw the country’s President Viktor Yanukovich forced from office.
Putin blamed a 'colossal mistake' for the war in Ukraine
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After his February 2014 ousting, Russia annexed the Black Sea region of Crimea and gave its backing to separatist fighters as an armed conflict kicked off in Ukraine’s east.
Yanukovich, a pro-Kremlin leader, was usurped thanks to a “coup” orchestrated by the US, Putin has long claimed.
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“President Yanukovich agreed to all conditions which included holding an early election he had no chance of winning”, he said.
“Why the coup? Why the victims? Why threaten Crimea? Why threaten the Donbas? That’s what I don’t understand.
“The CIA did its job to complete the coup.
“The political mistake was colossal. All this could be done without victims.”
Tucker Carlson joined Vladimir Putin
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He went on to criticise NATO, claiming the group continued to defy Russia’s demands.
“We never agreed to NATO’s expansion and we never agreed Ukraine would be in NATO”, he said.
“For decades we kept asking, ‘don’t do this, don’t do that.
“The current Ukraine leadership said it would not implement the current Minsk agreements where a plan for the peaceful settlement in Donbas was set forth.
Putin spoke to Tucker Carlson
Getty“Ukraine officials said they did not like anything about the Minsk agreements, in other words, they were not going to implement it.”
The agreements were signed in Minsk in 2014 and 2015 and saw a 12-point ceasefire deal struck between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists.
A sticking point in the agreement is the call for the withdrawal of all foreign armed formations and military equipment from the two disputed regions, Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russia had long denied it had such a presence in the region, despite Ukraine’s insistence that this refers to forces from the Kremlin.
In a video published ahead of the interview, Carlson claimed he was conducting the interview because English-language “media outlets are corrupt - they lie to their readers and viewers”.
The former Fox News host has been widely critical of US support for Ukraine and criticised a perceived lack of coverage of the Russian perspective.
Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was among those to criticise Carlson, claiming he is a “useful idiot” for Putin.
She told MSNBC: “He parrots Putin’s pack of lies about Ukraine, so I don’t see why Putin wouldn’t give him an interview because through him, he can continue to lie about what his objectives are in Ukraine and what he expects to see happen.”