Kremlin Says It Fears Ukraine Lurching Toward Full-Scale Combat, Vows To Protect Russian Citizens

The Kremlin has rejected Western calls to pull back troops building up near its border with Ukraine, and issued a stark warning that it will protect its citizens if growing instability in the region leads to Moscow’s fears of a return to full-scale combat operations.

Speaking a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with Ukrainian servicemen serving on the front lines separating them from Russian-backed fighters and amid a recent accumulation of photographs, video, and data suggesting major movements of Russian armed units toward or near Ukraine’s borders and into Crimea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was ready to act to prevent mass civilian casualties.

“As we have repeatedly said before, we are entitled to move our armed forces, any military units, around Russian territory as we please. Secondly, unfortunately, Ukraine is again turning into a potentially very unstable region and, of course, any country that borders an unstable, dangerous region, a powder keg, takes the necessary measures to ensure its security,” Peskov told journalists in Moscow on April 9.

Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid a wave of public protests.

Since then, overwhelming evidence suggests Russia has continued to lend diplomatic and military aid to armed separatists fighting in the eastern Ukrainian region known as the Donbas.

Despite multiple cease-fire agreements, the violence has never really ended with more than 13,000 people killed since April 2014, according to the United Nations, and more than 1 million displaced.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on April 8 urged Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call to reduce Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine, while the White House said it was “increasingly concerned by recent escalating Russian aggressions in eastern Ukraine, including Russian troop movements on Ukraine’s border.”

U.S. Warships

Peskov blamed the rising tensions on Ukraine, saying Kyiv “does not completely reject the idea of solving its own problem with the southeast of Ukraine by military means.”

He also alleged that virulent nationalist rhetoric in Ukraine was inflaming hatred against the mostly Russian-speaking population of the east, where in 2019 Putin simplified the procedure for people there to obtain Russian citizenship.

Asked about comments by a senior Russian official that Russia would likely act to protect civilians if they faced a potential massacre like the one that took place during the Bosnian War in Srebrenica in 1995, Peskov said that in such a case, “all countries, including Russia, will take steps to prevent such tragedies.”

The United States on April 9 reportedly notified Turkey that two U.S. warships will sail to the Black Sea on April 14 and April 15 and stay there until May 4 and May 5, respectively.

Such visits by American and other NATO ships have vexed Moscow, which long has bristled at Ukraine’s efforts to build up defense ties with the West and its aspirations to eventually join NATO.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned after the reports that Ukraine’s NATO bid “wouldn’t only lead to a massive escalation of the situation in the southeast but could also entail irreversible consequences for Ukrainian statehood.”

Moscow is demanding Ukraine give the separatist-controlled regions greater autonomy, which would effectively prevent the country from joining NATO.

Ukraine has blamed the Russian-backed separatists for the recent spike in hostilities, while Moscow has pointed the finger at Kyiv.

Some analysts have suggested that the recent actions may be Russia’s way of testing the new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and its commitment to Ukraine.

With reporting by TASS, Interfax, Reuters, and AP