Dec. 19 (UPI) — Russia should have launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a year-end news conference Thursday.
Putin made the comments while also fielding calls from audience members and reporters during the annual address, where he also said he would speak to ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad about missing American journalist Austin Tice.
The Russian president was on stage and spoke for more than four hours Thursday, where he was asked what he would have done differently, almost three years after launching an invasion of Ukraine.
“Knowing what’s happening now, back in 2022 I would’ve thought the decision ought to have been taken earlier,” Putin said Thursday, in comments translated to English by the BBC.
“We ought to have started getting ready for those developments, and the special military operation, before.”
On more than one occasion, Putin blamed the length of the conflict on former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who encouraged Ukraine to continue fighting and not relent.
Putin said he is “ready” for any potential talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, but that the two men have not spoken recently.
“You asked what we can offer, or what I can offer to the newly elected President Trump when we meet,” Putin said, responding to a question from NBC News.
“First of all, I don’t know when we will meet. Because he hasn’t said anything about it. I haven’t spoken to him at all in over four years. Of course, I am ready for this at any time, and I will be ready for a meeting if he wants it.”
The Russian leader was also asked by NBC News about Tice, the American freelance journalist who went missing in Syria in August of 2012.
This past August, U.S. President Joe Biden called on the Syrian government to release Tice, 12 years after he was kidnapped.
Syria has maintained its government had nothing to do with Tice’s disappearance.
Putin on Thursday said he would bring the subject up with al-Assad, who fled Syria earlier this month after the Jihadist rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham took control of the country.
“I have not seen President Assad when he arrived in Moscow,” Putin said in response to the NBC News question about Tice.
“But a person went missing 12 years ago, we understand what [the] situation was there back then.”