MOSCOW, February 6. /TASS/. The United States continues to speak about the alleged Russian threat to Ukraine, using such allegations as a pretext to pull troops and arsenals to that country, which destabilizes the situation, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the international committee of the Russian State Duma (lower parliament house) said on Sunday, commenting on US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s statements.

Earlier, Sullivan said that Russia could annex Crimea. He did not rule out some Hybrid actions from Russia, including cyberattacks and political destabilization.

"Political destabilization happened in Ukraine back in 2014 thanks to the US ‘cookies’ in the maidan. The conflict in Donbass is the consequence of the policy of external governance, which has turned Ukraine into a bargaining chip. People refused to tolerate the dictation of the West-backed nationalists, they did not want to refuse from the use of their native Russian language, they refused to live by others’ rules," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

"The United States and its closest allies, including the countries that have recently joined the EU, continue to pump Ukraine with weapons, which will be used against civilians in the LPR and DPR (self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics - TASS)," he noted. "The collective West is using the ‘Russian threat’ as a pretext to pull NATO contingents and arsenals closer to the border of our country."

He drew attention to Czech President Milos Zeman’s words, who spoke out against sending NATO soldiers to Ukraine as that country is not a member of the alliance. He said that the conflict in Donbass is a civil war. "These words, like any other adequate assessments of the situation, stirred outrage in Kiev. Foreign Minister [Dmitry] Kuleba said that Zeman’s words are an attempt to do harm to the Ukrainian-Czech relations. As a matter of fact, it is the Ukrainian authorities and their American string-pullers who are really doing harm to peaceful settlement in Donbass," Slutsky emphasized.

Recently, Western and Ukrainian media outlets have been echoing claims about a possible Russian aggression against Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier slammed such statements as "empty and groundless" and their goal is to whip up tensions. He stressed that Russia doesn’t pose any threat to anyone, but did not rule out possible provocations to justify the remarks in question and warned that attempts at using force to settle the crisis in southeastern Ukraine would have the most severe consequences.