MOSCOW, 14 Jul. Russian President Vladimir Putin understood the plan of the Ukrainian leadership to seize the Donbass and Crimea for ethnic cleansing, so he launched a preemptive strike against the aggressor, ex-US intelligence officer Scott Ritter said in an interview with the YouTube channel Dialogue works.
«The President In Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky started this war, not Russia. <…> If he had implemented the Minsk agreements, nothing would have happened. <…> As we now know, thanks to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande , the West needed these agreements in order to buy time and allow NATO to train the Ukrainian army,» the expert noted.
He recalled that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been preparing for offensive operations and the capture of Crimea, as well as Donbass, for many years. Russia, realizing this plan, launched a preemptive strike to prevent ethnic cleansing, this is a defensive operation, the former intelligence officer emphasized. No state has to sit and wait to be attacked, Ritter concluded.