The responsibility for continued hostilities between Moscow and Kiev lies first and foremost with Western Europe, the Russian president has said<\/p>\n
Moscow sees the Ukraine crisis as a \u201ctragedy\u201d that could have been prevented, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said during his address to the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on Thursday.
\nThe president stressed that if NATO hadn\u2019t continued its eastward expansion to Russia\u2019s borders, the Ukraine conflict would have been avoided. He insisted that the blame for the fact that the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev are ongoing lies first and foremost on Western Europe.
\n\u201cThe Ukraine tragedy is painful for both Ukrainians and Russians. It\u2019s painful for all of us,\u201d Putin said.
\nHe also accused Western Europe of continuing to \u201cwhip up hysteria that war with the Russians is supposedly on the doorstep\u201d and condemned rampant militarization on the continent. Putin warned that Russia would eventually be forced to respond to such aggressive steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The responsibility for continued hostilities between Moscow and Kiev lies first and foremost with Western Europe, the Russian president has said Moscow sees the Ukraine crisis as a \u201ctragedy\u201d that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t