Making Crimea part of Russia again result of Kyiv’s policy - Putin

There would have been no decision to reunify Crimea with Russia in 2014 if a coup had not been staged in Ukraine or if Russian people had been treated humanely, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"Had our relations with fraternal Ukraine been normal, modern and benevolent, it would have never crossed anybody’s mind to take any actions, like those related to Crimea. But how could it be? Had everything been fine there, had the Russian people, Russian language and culture been respected, had all those state coups never happened, would anyone in Russia have made up their mind to take action in Crimea like we did? Of course not. We had to protect people from those Nazi scum," Putin said at a meeting with the Russian Civic Chamber, TASS reports.

Commenting on his words about "fraternal Ukraine," Putin emphasized, "I still say ‘fraternal,’ meaning our ethnic background makes us fraternal in the literal sense of the word."

"They merely put us at a crossroads, at which we could do nothing else but stand up for the people living there," he said referring to Crimea and Kiev’s policy. "Later, the same happened to Donbass and Novorossiya."

When explaining the causes of the ongoing conflict, the Russian president pointed out that despite signing the Minsk peace accords, Western countries "were not going to implement them."

"Moreover, they publicly refused to implement them in any way. What is more, they began dragging that entire territory into NATO defiantly, paying no attention to any of our protests, to our position, as if we did not even exist," Putin stated.

"Of course, we had to go to great lengths so that the accession of these territories was smooth and natural and so that the people can feel the result as soon as possible," he summarized, speaking about the new regions joining Russia.