Paris has no information at the moment about Moscow’s purported plans to go on the offensive in Ukraine in spite of the alleged build-up of Russian troops at the Ukrainian-Russian border and prerequisites for invasion.
French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said this on Wednesday.
“The situation is very serious, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are near the borders with Ukraine, military exercises of Russian and Belarusian forces will be held in Belarus near the Ukrainian borders in the coming days.
“All prerequisites for invasion are in place. But at the moment we have no information about the intention of Russian President Vladimir Putin to move to action,’’ Le Drian said on the air of France 2 broadcaster.
In the past few months, the West and Ukraine have accused Russia of massing troops near the Ukrainian border in alleged preparation for invasion.
Russia said that it had no intention of invading Ukraine while stressing that it had the right to move its forces within its own territory.
Russia has also expressed concerns over NATO’s military activity near its borders and the ongoing military support of Ukraine, including an increase in the number of Western instructors in the breakaway Donbas region.
Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that Moscow did not exclude that the hysteria around Ukraine fueled by the West was aimed at covering Kiev’s plans to sabotage the Minsk Agreements on Donbas. (Sputnik/NAN)
