Putin blames crisis on Kiev's lack of dialogue

Russian president Vladimir Putin was visiting the Mammoth museum at the Northeastern Federal University in Yakutsk when BBC journalist John Sweeney approached him with the question, "do you regret the killings in the Ukraine?"

At first Putin kept walking but eventually called over his interpreter to answer the insistent journalist's questions.

“I’ll tell you in what the undergoing tragedy consists,” Putin said. “What is the aim and sense of today’s military operation in the east? And what triggered the stepping up of their activities,” the president said.

“They (activities of the militias) are triggered by the fact that Ukrainian regular troops have encircled major inhabited localities and are shooting directly on residential areas,” the Russian president stressed, putting a special focus on the idea that currently the main aim is to save civilians.

“I believe the main reason is that the current Kiev authorities do not want to hold a substantial political dialogue with the eastern part of their country,” Putin said. “I mean a substantial political dialogue.”

Speaking about the militia forces, Putin said that their purpose was to push the Ukrainian troops away from big cities "to prevent them from shooting at residential areas. “The aim of the militia is to push the armed forces and their artillery out to prevent them from firing at residential districts,” Putin said.