President Vladimir Putin: As for European politicians’ claims that they are preparing for war with Russia, that is nonsense.

Such statements are made on the pretext of Russia’s alleged aggressive designs against Western European countries. That is a lie. A brazen, shameless lie.

Russia has never had any aggressive intentions towards European countries.

The tragedy unfolding in Ukraine is the result of their policy.

They were the ones who incited the government coup in Kyiv in 2014, compelling Russia to defend the people of Crimea and subsequently assist the Donbas and Lugansk People’s Republics.

It is their policy from the first step, when they deceived us, that there would never be any expansion, that NATO would never take a single step to the East.

Everything they do serves only one purpose: to perpetuate confrontation with Russia and justify huge spending from national budgets – all at the expense of European taxpayers.

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