‘We are faced with common threats, and we still want all countries, both in Europe and the whole world, to join their efforts to combat these threats, and we are still striving for this, ‘ Putin said in a wide-ranging interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper. I say to you: “the reunification of the Crimea with Russian Federation is just”, Putin continued.
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But as time has worn on, it’s become clear that if that was his aim, it hasn’t worked, as the Chancellor has – with President Francois Hollande of France – become one of the leading voices in Europe’s confrontation with Russian Federation over its illegal military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of the Crimea.
“We didn’t fight a war, didn’t fire a shot, not a single person was killed”, in the run-up to the February 2014 referendum in the Crimea, Putin claimed. “But the states that were already in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the member states, could also have followed their own interests – and abstained from an expansion to the east”, Putin said.
He hit out at NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders after the Soviet Union’s demise in 1991 and at an anti-missile shield being erected by the United States, accusing the West’s expansion after the Cold War of exacerbating worldwide crises.
The EU has linkd the removal of sanctions to the implementation of the Minsk agreement by Russian Federation and Ukraine.
Russia’s economy and the ruble have been battered since 2014 by the slide in oil prices and Western sanctions over Moscow’s role in the Ukraine crisis.
“If there had been political will, if they had wanted to, they could have done anything”, Putin said.
Putin drew attention to a clause in the peace agreement that required Ukraine to introduce constitutional reform by the end of previous year, calling this “the main, the key issue in the settlement process”.
A year later, Putin allowed his sizable black Labrador, Connie, to attend a meeting with Merkel when she visited him in Sochi. “In this respect, we do not have to look for guilty parties overseas”, Putin added.
“We were too late”, he said. “Last year, the gross domestic product had dropped by 3.8 per cent. Inflation is approximately 12.7 per cent”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is ready to cooperate with the West over the fight against terrorism and other key issues without ceding Russia’s national interests.
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The US however has repeatedly pointed to the damage the sanctions are causing to the Russian economy, even as they appear to have done little to change Moscow’s calculus on Ukraine.
