Putin said that Russia is not ready to take over Ukraine in 2014

Russia was not ready for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2014, President Vladimir Putin admitted on the program “Moscow. Putin’s Kremlin” in “Russia 1”.

Correspondent Pavel Zarubin asked the president why Russia had not launched the so-called “special military operation” back in 2014. To which Putin replied: “As for readiness and expediency … You know, in such cases there is no subjunctive. This concerns, firstly, our willingness to do more than that [те] actions, [которые мы предприняли] within the so-called Crimean Spring.

Putin then listed the areas where Russian leaders were strengthening before the start of the war in Ukraine.

“Now we have <…> record harvests in agriculture, over 150 million tons of grain, even 155 million tons. <...> Then (in 2014 – approx. TMT) there was nothing like this, ”said Putin.

The president emphasized that this result was due not only to weather conditions, but also to the development of technology, the production of fertilizers and “introducing a certain amount of fertilizer into the soil”. “This is one of the fundamental issues – supplying the country with food,” Putin said.

The Russian leadership was also strengthened in the eight years preceding the war import substitution and the financial system, the president continued.

“Despite the expectations of the enemy, nothing has collapsed, everything works. AND [банковские] the cards work and the financial system is functioning and banks are building their capacity. It is very difficult to say what would happen in 2014,” Putin said.

In addition, Russia has developed its military technologies and created hypersonic weapons in 8 years, Putin concluded.

January 2023 The European Court of Human Rights found that Russia partially occupied Donbas in 2014. It was she who controlled the areas of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts in eastern Ukraine, occupied by separatists, the judges of the ECtHR concluded. They also discovered that the Russian military had been present in eastern Ukraine since April 2014, with their large-scale deployment starting in August 2014.