Nice interpretation of interview. But actually, consequences that we have today is result of Merkel and other Western politics decisions. Like sucking Russian gas pipe without having other suppliets made Europe heavy dependent on Russian gas. Too positive attitude towards Russia. And actually, when Russia occupied Crimea and invaded Eastern Ukraine, Europe gave time for Russia to become stronger. Sanctions that they imposed then was complete joke. Reaction wasn't harsh enough.
It is false logic ("Ukraine made itself stronger, thus they were not going to comply" False, Ukraine had all reasons to get stronger since the RF had shown clear intent of using violence to achieve its objectives).
The Minsk agreements are pretty much an unconditional surrender and a treaty that is imposed like that does only hold while the balance of power holds. There have been many comments already on who broke what in the agreements. Adolf Putin is not neutral to this.