Kiev warns Moscow that it will pay dearly for any attack on Ukraine The news

Kyiv, Nov. 25, LETA – AFP. Kiev on Thursday warned Russia not to invade Ukraine, saying Moscow would have to pay dearly for any such attempt.

Western countries have expressed concern this month that Russia has stepped up military activity on Ukraine’s borders. Among other things, the United States expressed serious concern about the increase in the number of Russian troops at the border.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said it was difficult to guess what Russian President Vladimir Putin was thinking, but Kiev was doing everything it could to deter the Kremlin from aggression.

“We are trying to make him realize that he will pay dearly for a new attack on Ukraine,” he said.

“Moscow needs to be clear about the political, economic and human losses it will suffer in the face of a new phase of aggression,” Kuleba said. “So it’s better not to do it,” he added.

The US embassy in Ukraine on Wednesday issued a warning to US citizens about “unusual Russian military activity near the Ukrainian border and in the occupied Crimea.”

Moscow has dismissed growing Western fears that Russia could prepare for an invasion of Ukraine.

Putin told European Council President Charles Michel on Wednesday that he was worried about provocations in Kiev to escalate tensions in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin said.

In February 2014, Russia occupied the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula. Since April 2014, Moscow-backed and armed militants, saboteurs and soldiers of Russia’s regular units have occupied large areas in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine.

In the conflict in eastern Ukraine, 13,000 people have been killed and almost three million have fled.

Punishing Russia for the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of eastern Ukraine, the EU, the US and other Western countries have imposed sanctions on many of Russia’s top officials, the Kremlin’s immediate circle, and Russia’s financial, defense, energy and other sectors.

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