Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview on Wednesday that he regretted waiting so long to act militarily in Ukraine — having been hoodwinked by Western politicians over the years.

"The only thing we can regret is that we did not start our active actions earlier, believing that we were dealing with decent people," he told journalist Pavel Zarubin, according to RT.

In 2022, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel slipped and said the Minsk agreements were an effective ruse to give Ukraine time to "get stronger" for its next conflict with Russia. She said Ukraine used the ceasefire after the two peace deals as a time to get stronger, "as you can see today."

"The Ukraine of 2014/15 is not the Ukraine of today. As you saw in the battle for Debaltseve in early 2015, Putin could easily have overrun them at the time. And I very much doubt that the NATO countries could have done as much then as they do now to help Ukraine," she said.

TRENDPOST: Following the U.S.-led coup that overthrew Ukraine's President Victor Yanukovych in early 2014, Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and align with Russia. 

During the 2014 uprising, some 97 percent of the citizens of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea voted to leave Ukraine for integration of the region into the Russian Federation. 

That year, Ukraine and Russian separatists agreed to the 12-point Minsk Agreement that called for a ceasefire in the region, but both sides violated the deal. In February 2015, the Minsk II Agreement, created by France and Germany, also called for a ceasefire, which Ukraine violated.