MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. Russia excludes any possibility of deploying its offensive weapons in Ukraine but doesn’t rule out that the United States and NATO can do it, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.
"We cannot rule out that our partners (the United States and NATO) can deploy offensive weapons on Ukraine’s territory. On our part, we exclude the deployment of offensive weapons there. That is why we insist on legally binding guarantees," he said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station cited on the Telegram channel of the radio station’s editor-in-chief Alexey Venediktov.
Recently, Western countries and Ukraine have been speaking about Russia’s possible aggression against Ukraine. Peskov earlier slammed such statements as hollow and groundless with the intention of fanning tensions. He stressed that Russia is a threat to no one but did not rule out possible provocations to justify such statements and warned that attempts at using force to settle the crisis in southeastern Ukraine would have the most serious consequences.