Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba assumes there is a possibility of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the coming weeks. He claims that Ukraine is making every effort to resolve the conflict in Donbas diplomatically and peacefully, however, there has not been such a response from the Russian Foreign Ministry yet.
This was stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine during his online briefing for foreign media.
According to Kuleba, after the Russian invasion in 2014, illegal occupation of Crimea and seizure of certain areas in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, anything can be expected from the Russian leadership.
"No one could have foreseen until 2014 that Russia would be the first country since World War II to try to annex the part of territory of a neighboring sovereign state, but it did so. The Russian military build-up that is taking place now is even more massive than it was back in 2014, which means that we cannot exclude any scenarios. We cannot know for sure whether Moscow will decide to start a new stage of its aggression against Ukraine. But it is obvious that they will already be ready to do it in a few weeks," the Ukrainian Minister said.
At the same time, Kuleba noted that the Ukrainian government does not know the date and time when Russia will cross the front line or provoke a new wave of aggravation.
"But we can definitely observe the strategic training of the Russian Federation, military training," he said.
According to the Minister, Ukraine does not plan any offensive measures in the Donbas. Ukrainian troops are ordered not to respond to provocations.
"Unfortunately, the other side is doing everything possible to provoke them," said the minister.
The Ukrainian side is making every effort to resolve the conflict diplomatically and peacefully. In particular, Kuleba said that he wanted to hold a conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on this occasion, but did not receive an answer. According to him, now everything depends on Ukrainian side and those countries that "lag behind respect for international law and sovereignty in Europe to demotivate Putin from further aggressive steps".