Putin names new reasons for invasion of Ukraine - ISW

President of the aggressor country of the russian federation vladimir putin has stated that he allegedly had no other choice but to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and added that this decision should have been made even earlier.

This is stated in the russian Offensive Campaign Assessment by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) as of December 22, 2024, the Ukrainian News agency reports.

The report mentioned his interview with russian journalist Pavel Zarubin, which took place on Sunday, December 22. In it, putin repeated the statement that the invasion should have occurred even before February 2022, although, according to him, it is difficult to determine exactly when this should have happened.

He stated that Ukraine and the West "misled Russia" by not implementing the Minsk agreements, which, according to him, allowed Western partners to prepare Kyiv for future "military actions" against russia.

Putin said that russia should have "prepared for this" and found the "right moment" to launch an invasion, rather than "waiting for the moment when nothing could be done."

The ISW report noted that putin's statements did not mention how Ukraine had been strengthening its army since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the outbreak of war in the east of the country.

"The Minsk II Accords were notably extremely favorable to Russia, placing no obligations on Moscow – which was party to the negotiations as an alleged neutral mediator. The Accords established a "ceasefire" that Russian proxies continually violated with Russian support," the ISW report noted.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump knows that Ukraine does not want to surrender and freeze the war, but at the same time wants to act quickly to resolve the conflict.

Meanwhile, Trump said that putin wants to meet with him as soon as possible to discuss the war.