Putin: Closing the border with Ukraine would lead to a new Srebrenica

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in Sochi that closing the Russian border with the self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine would lead to a situation similar to that in Srebrenica, world media report, Patria agency carries.

Speaking at the Valdai foreign policy forum in Sochi, he said that if such a decision were made, it would lead to bloodshed, which Russia would never allow, HINA reports.

- As long as the political issues are unresolved, these territories do not have a special status, and there is no amnesty law, the decision to close the borders between Russia and the unrecognized republics would lead to a situation similar to what happened in Srebrenica. It would lead to bloodshed. We cannot allow that to happen - Putin said.

He blamed Europe for the Ukrainian crisis and said that only European countries can change that situation. He added that Ukraine is sabotaging all points of the Minsk peace agreement.

Russia's biggest mistake, he pointed out, is that it trusted the West too much in the last 15 years, which was interpreted as its weakness.

When asked what Moscow's biggest mistake was in its relations with the West, he said:

- Our biggest mistake is that we trusted you too much. You interpreted our trust as weakness, and you exploited it - he replied to a participant of the forum who came from Germany.