Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan to go to war on Ukraine was made long before the start of the war.
In an interview with CBS, which was published in full by the station, on Sunday, Scholz said, "I think the decision to fight this war was made a year before it started, or maybe earlier."
"He (Putin) will be able to continue the war for a very long time."
CBS had interviewed Scholz after The NATO summit in Madrid, which lasted until last Thursday.
The German chancellor admitted that it was a mistake to rely unilaterally on Russian energy in the past as the West should have invested all over Europe in infrastructure that allows them to change supply from day to day.
He saw this as a lesson learned in Europe.
In response to a question about how much money Germany spends on energy coming from Russia, Scholz said only the amount is declining and pointed out that Putin cannot spend this money on products from the West, for example in the field of modern technology, because of the sanctions.
Analysts reported that Russia collected 93 billion euros in revenue from exporting fossil fuels in the first 100 days after the war.
A report issued by the Finnish Institute "CREA" in the middle of last month indicated that Germany is Russia's second most important customer after China, with its import bill for these products amounting to 12.1 billion euros.
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