The 2014 Ukraine coup, funded by the West, which brought anti-Russian forces and parties to power, is the reason behind the current situation in Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday.

"After the revelations of [ex-German Chancellor Angela] Merkel, [ex-Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko, and other politicians about the true goals of the Minsk agreements, it became obvious to everyone that Russia was not the source of the conflict in Ukraine," Shoigu told a collegium meeting at the Ministry of Defense.

Merkel, who was in office from 2005 to 2021, said earlier in the month that the Minsk accords were signed to "give Ukraine time" to strengthen itself.

"The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not modern Ukraine," Merkel said.

"The reason is the coup d'etat in Kiev financed by the West in 2014, which brought anti-Russian forces to power and divided the fraternal peoples. This provoked an armed confrontation in Donbas," Shoigu underlined.

Merkel was the German chancellor when Ukraine's state coup happened in 2014, and the Minsk accords on resolving the Donbass war were signed with her contribution.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the very next day that Merkel's confession might be used as evidence in a tribunal against Western leaders for provoking the war in Ukraine between Moscow and Kiev.

The West "talks a lot about legal assessments of what is happening around Ukraine, certain tribunals and so on in all sorts of ways," adding that "this is a specific reason for a tribunal," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

More importantly, Zakharova highlighted that the Merkel confessions were "evidence that everything that was worked out and presented to the world as agreements and became part of international law in the form of a UN Security Council resolution, binding on every state, was a fabrication," adding "It was a flirtation with the use of international law for the sole purpose of pumping the Kiev regime with weapons, to prepare politically for the start of hostilities."

“They did not feel sorry for anyone: women, children, the civilian population of Donbass or the whole of Ukraine," Zakharova commented, "They needed a conflict and they were ready for it back then, in 2015."

Bolstering the northwest

As NATO expands toward the East and even the North, namely Sweden and Finland, in addition to the build-up of the potential of the alliance's countries, it is a necessity that Russia takes retaliatory measures to create an appropriate grouping of troops in the country's northwest, Shoigu clarified.

"Given NATO's desire to build up military potential near the Russian borders, as well as to expand the North Atlantic Alliance at the expense of Finland and Sweden, retaliatory measures are required to create an appropriate grouping of troops in northwestern Russia," he explained.

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In detail, the defense minister said Moscow would be obliged to create two new inter-service strategic associations of the Armed Forces - the Moscow and Leningrad military districts.

Currently, there are talks about Finland and Sweden joining the alliance. On July 5, the permanent representatives of NATO member states signed accession protocols for the two Scandanavian countries at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels.

All members of the bloc have to ratify the protocols according to their national legislation.

Out of all the NATO members, Hungary and Turkey are the only countries that still did not clear Sweden and Finland's accession. 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said late last month that Parliament plans to ratify NATO membership for Finland and Sweden in early 2023.

Kiev suffering great losses

According to the Russian Defense Minister, Kiev has suffered significant losses among its ranks, with a substantial part of Ukraine's weapons and equipment having been destroyed.

The EU member states have already spent $97 billion on arms supplies to Ukraine to make up for these losses in equipment and manpower, Shoigu noted, adding that this was much more than the United States had abandoned in Afghanistan during its withdrawal from the country.

"Part of it [the military weapons and equipment abandoned by Washington in Afghanistan] is in the hands of terrorists and is being distributed all over the world. It is not known in whose hands weapons from Ukraine will end up tomorrow," Shoigu added.

His statement comes in light of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari warning that weapons supplied to Ukraine from Western countries are "starting to flow" into the Lake Chad basin region.

Addressing the heads of states from neighboring states participating in the Lake Chad Basin Commission in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, the president said, "Regrettably, the situation in the Sahel and the raging war in Ukraine serve as major sources of weapons and fighters that bolster the ranks of the terrorists in the region."

In August, an American news outlet unmasked that a shockingly large amount of weaponry heading for Ukraine was untraceable. "Like 30% of it reaches its final destination," said a tweet that was later deleted after a swarm of online trolls attacked it.

Shoigu had previously said the arms supplied by the West to Ukraine were ending up on the black market and spreading across West Asia.

Russia needs to increase manpower

The defense minister also stressed the necessity to bring the number of the Russian armed forces to 1.5 million personnel, including 695,000 contract soldiers.

"In order to guarantee the solution of the tasks of ensuring Russia's military security, it is necessary to increase the number of the armed forces to 1.5 million military personnel, including contract military personnel to 695,000 people," Shoigu underscored.

The minister also instructed to increase the number of contract servicemen to 521,000 by the end of the year, taking into account the replacement of the mobilized in the groupings and the recruitment of new formations.