Russia is not planning a military invasion of Ukraine, its envoy to the European Union said on Thursday, after Moscow alarmed the West with a large army buildup near the Ukrainian border.
In an interview with the German daily Die Welt, Vladimir Chizhov indicated that Russia intended to support Russian-speaking people and compatriots in other countries, but that Moscow had never stated that it intended to do so using military means.
Russia has deployed approximately 100,000 combat-ready forces in eastern Ukraine, alarmed Ukraine, NATO, the United States, and its European partners.
Russia has consistently dismissed Western concerns over the troop buildup, claiming that it is allowed to amass military personnel wherever they are needed on its territory.
"Russia has no plans to launch an attack on any country. I can tell you that no Russian soldiers are ready to invade Ukraine at this time," Chizhov was reported to have said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Tuesday that Russia has no place to retreat in the Ukraine conflict with the U.S. and would be compelled to respond accordingly unless the West changed its "aggressive stance."
As part of its push for an early response from the United States and NATO to Russia's demands for a legally enforceable set of security guarantees from the West, Putin delivered his remarks to military officials last week.
Earlier on December 22, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that Russian and American negotiators will meet early next year to discuss Moscow's security proposals.
Among these demands are the cessation of NATO's eastward expansion and the restriction of the alliance's military activities in Eastern Europe.
Russia will also begin separate talks with NATO in January, Lavrov said, adding that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will also conduct separate talks.
Ukraine shares boundaries with Russia and the European Union. As a former Soviet republic, it is closely linked to Russia on a social and cultural level, and Russian is widely spoken throughout the country.
Russia has always been a staunch opponent of Ukraine's accession to European institutions. When Ukrainians toppled their pro-Russian president in 2014, Russia seized and later annexed Ukraine's southern Crimean peninsula, while Russian-backed separatists gained huge swaths of Ukraine's two eastern regions, together referred to as the Donbas.
Meanwhile, Western intelligence services, as well as those in Ukraine, believe an incursion or invasion may take place in early 2022. The most likely date for escalation readiness is at end of January, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov disclosed.
