MOSCOW, July 20./TASS/. The Ukrainian authorities are unable to pacify the radical forces in the country, and if Kiev attacks Donbass, the population of the region may be subject to genocide. In this case, Moscow, like the entire global community, won’t stay indifferent, Deputy Chief of the Russian Presidential Staff Dmitry Kozak said in an interview with the French quarterly Politique Internationale.
When asked whether Russia will rise to protect the residents of Donbass in the event of Kiev’s attack, he said, "In this case, it is not ruled out that we will see the situation acquiring the signs of genocide".
"Regretfully, ultra-radical political groups remain in Ukraine that are ready for such action. Meanwhile, as we have been witnessing of late, the actions of these groups cannot be countered by the Ukrainian state today," he stressed.
"It will be a tragedy if those who are staging openly nationalistic acts of violence on Kiev’s streets have rule over the conflict zone," Kozak stressed in the interview published on the website of the Russian Embassy to France on Tuesday.
"It is obvious that neither Russia, nor the entire global community, will stay indifferent to this," he noted.
At a meeting in April with experts from the Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Kozak said that Russia would have to protect its citizens living there if a large-scale conflict flared up in the region.