Kremlin: The chances of war in Ukraine remain high

Ukraine’s declared goal of recovering Russia’s occupied and annexed Crimea in 2014 is a direct threat to Russia, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that Crimea is Ukrainian territory and Ukraine aims to liberate it.

He focused on diplomatic solutions and did not mention the recovery of the occupied peninsula by force.

“Speaking in parliament, Zelensky said that the recovery of Crimea should become Ukraine’s main goal and philosophy,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday. “We see this as a direct threat to Russia.”

“This wording, of course, means that the Kiev regime intends to use all available means, including force, to usurp the Russian region. That is how we tend to see it,” Peskov said.

Kiev’s Western allies have warned in recent weeks that the threat that Russia could attack Ukraine is serious and that Moscow’s allegations of a threat to its security could be used as a pretext.

“The possibility of hostilities in Ukraine remains high,” a Kremlin spokesman said.

“This is still a matter of particular concern and concern to us. We are seeing an increase in the intensity of provocative action on the hotline,” Peskov said.

Following talks in Washington over the concentration of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, senior US and Russian diplomats are scheduled to hold talks in Sweden on Thursday.

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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