London and its allied will not come to aid Ukraine in case Russia invade the country, UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said.
On Thursday, defence minister Oleksii Yuriyovych Reznikov said in a statement signed by Wallace. “The UK always and will forever support the Ukrainian people.”
“Ukraine is not among the members of NATO, so it is highly expected that no one is going
to send forces into Ukraine to challenge Russia,” said Wallace on the dame day.
On Monday, British PM Boris Johnson said to Russian President Vladimir Putin, warning him:
“Just trying to destabilize Ukraine would lead Russia to a strategic mistake with serious consequences.”
In November, the Ukrainian government claimed that nearly 90,000 Russian soldiers and
advanced equipment, including tanks, were placed near Ukraine, raising concerns about a potential invasion.
According to Ukraine’s defence ministry, units of Russia’s 41st Army have been stationed about 260 kilometres north of the border.
Russia doesn’t require any involvement from NATO.
Moscow, on Friday, demanded the NATO denial of the membership of Ukraine and other
former Soviet countries and the rolling back of the alliance’s military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe.
“It’s likely that Russia would take unstated new measures to ensure its security if Western
allies continue to take provocative action,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax.
“We will ensure our security and abide by NATO’s logic in our activities and actions extend the limits of what is possible sooner or later.”
Ryabkov added, “we will save no effort to find all the needed ways, means and solutions to ensure our security.”
On Friday, NATO’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg confirmed that NATO concerns must
be taken into account in any security talks with Moscow and involving Ukraine and other partners.
The war in eastern Ukraine began in 2014, and it is an ongoing conflict between the
Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Fourteen thousand were injured, and more than 2 million Ukrainians were displaced either in other parts of the country or abroad due to the seven-year war.
