A pro-Russian leader of the separatists in eastern Ukraine said today that a full-scale war could break out in the region at any time and that his forces might need to turn to Moscow for support.
Dennis Pushilin, the leader of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic, said there was a good chance a war would result in huge losses, but described it as “madness” to embrace such a development.
“First of all, we rely on ourselves, but we do not rule out the possibility of being forced to turn to Russia if Ukraine, with the support of Western countries, crosses a certain line,” he told Reuters. his office.
Nearly 15,000 people have been killed since 2014 in fighting between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian army, according to Kiev. Tensions have been rising since November, when Russia began mobilizing a force of 100,000 men on the border with Ukraine, raising fears of a wider war, although Moscow insists it is not planning an invasion.
Pushilin said the separatists did not have sufficient weapons in terms of electronic warfare, air defense and the ability to deal with Turkish-made Ukrainian military drones. He also said he had no contact with Russia over arms supplies, but noted that a “significant statement” had been made by a ruling party politician last month, who said Moscow should supply some of its weapons. separatists in Donetsk and neighboring Lugansk.
In another interview with Reuters, Alexander Khodakovsky, a military commander in the breakaway region, urged Russia to send 30,000 troops to reinforce the separatists and to operate new weapons systems that Moscow hopes will supply them.
Russia claims that the conflict in Ukraine is a civil war in which it has no involvement. High-ranking sources in the Ukrainian government say, however, that Russia has deployed a force of about 2,000 men to support the approximately 35,000 separatists in the Donbas region.
“Russian forces have been waging war in Donbas for eight years,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko.
Pushilin declined to give a clear answer when asked what the possibility is or whether Russia wants to recognize the region as an independent state, as some Russian lawmakers have called for. He said it would be “selfish” to focus only on the separatist provinces and ignore the interests of Russian citizens in other parts of Ukraine.
Without providing evidence, Pushilin said there was a “constant threat of military action” from the Ukrainian side, as well as clear indications of preparations.
Ukraine has repeatedly denied allegations by the Russians that it plans to retake the breakaway territories by force.
“I’m even talking about some kind of big war. “Which I would like to avoid, because this war could be the last for humanity.” He also criticized the “naive” statements of US officials that the timing of a possible clash would depend on whether the ground was icy. “It could start at any time, regardless of the weather. “Sometimes bad weather is good cover to launch an attack,” he said.
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