Russia ready to attack Ukraine if it joins Nato, says Kremlin expert
Warning of new conflict between two countries if alliance expands farther into Eastern Europe
RUSSIA will attack Ukraine unless Nato gives cast-iron guarantees that the country will never be allowed to join the alliance, a Kremlin-linked foreign policy expert said yesterday.
The claim by Fyodor Lukyanov is the clearest explanation yet for why Russia has been amassing troops near the Ukrainian border, prompting fears of an imminent invasion.
Mr Lukyanov, chairman of the board of the Russian Foreign Affairs Council, which advises the Kremlin, said in an article published yesterday that Moscow would seek more than just verbal reassurances from Nato.
“This recent round of escalation in Eastern Europe showed that the old principles of security on the continent are no longer working,” he wrote.
He warned of a “new conflict” if Nato expanded farther east.
“Russia will have to change the system and draw new ‘red lines’,” he said, raising a post-war deal between the Soviet Union and Finland, under which Moscow recognised Finland’s independence in return for Helsinki’s neutrality in the Cold War.
He added that the “gambit that led to the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia”, when Moscow invaded after claiming to have been provoked, “could well be replicated” in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has described the troop movement near the border as a deterrent against a Ukrainian government offensive in areas of the country held by Moscow-backed separatists.
Conflict Intelligence Team, a respected collective of Russian investigative journalists, put out a new report yesterday based on open-sourced data that showed the Russian military moving tanks to new locations close to the Ukrainian border.
“We agree with estimates by [foreign] intelligence that Russia would be ready for a possible operation against Ukraine’s government-controlled territories no earlier than the beginning of next year,” it said.
In Brussels, Brig Gen Simon Doran, from the US Marine Corps, said of Nato’s preparation for a potential Russian invasion: “We exist to be ready at all times.”
He added: “Hopefully, we’re not only deterring potential adversaries, we’re also reassuring all of our partners and allies that if called upon, we will be here.
“We are absolutely ready to combat any aggression from anybody globally.”
Ukraine held military exercises in the region bordering Russian-occupied Crimea this week to test the latest additions to its arsenal, including Turkishmade combat drones and American Javelin anti-tank missiles.
Lt Gen Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, thanked the country’s international allies for providing stateof-the-art
‘This recent escalation showed the old principles of security on the continent are no longer working’
weapons to fend off a possible Russian invasion.
Oleksiy Reznikov, the defence minister, said that he had been briefed about Russian military movements near the border in recent meetings with his British and US counterparts.
“We’re aware of the risks,” Mr Reznikov said, adding that he had received assurances that Ukraine “won’t be left alone”.
Commenting on the reports of the Javelin missiles tested in Ukraine, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that “the situation in the east remains very, very worrying”.
Russia held snap military drills the same day in the Black Sea near Crimea, involving three warships and 10 fighter jets, the country’s military said.
The defence ministry said that troops practised repelling an air raid on a Russian naval base and launching a missile strike on enemy vessels in the Black Sea, among other exercises.
Earlier this week, Kyiv accused Russia of leading “large-scale military exercises” of separatist forces in the east of Ukraine.