Kathrine Frich
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unfolded, Vladimir Putin’s explanations for the conflict have shifted repeatedly.
Independent Russian journalists, cited by Digi24, compiled several of his public statements that show how the Kremlin’s narrative has moved between denial, justification and minimisation.
The four quotes below illustrate how the Russian leader has contradicted himself over the course of more than three years of war.
He said Russia had “not started yet”
In July 2022, speaking to the State Duma, Putin claimed Moscow had barely begun to use its military strength.
“We hear today that they want to defeat us on the battlefield… Let them try. But everyone should understand that we haven’t even started yet,” he said.
This suggested Russia was holding back despite months of fierce fighting already under way across Ukraine.
He said Russia “didn’t start the war”
By October 2023, at the Valdai Forum, he shifted to a narrative of denial.
“I have said many times that we did not start the so-called war in Ukraine. On the contrary, we are trying to end it,” he told the audience.
This directly conflicted with earlier boasts about Russia’s strength and contradicted the well-documented timeline of the full-scale invasion.
He said the war was started “too late”
In February 2024, during an interview with state media presenter Pavel Zarubin, Putin offered a new explanation. “
Our only regret is that we didn’t act sooner, believing we were dealing with decent people,” he said.
This framed the invasion as overdue and necessary, reversing his claim only months earlier that Russia never started a war at all.
He said it was “not even a war”
Before talks with the United States in December 2025, Putin again redefined the conflict.
“In Ukraine, we are acting surgically, very carefully… This is not a war in the direct, modern sense of the word,” he told journalists.
This attempt to minimise the scale of the violence contradicted every previous justification, from denial to delayed action.
Sources: Digi24
