MOSCOW, February 14./TASS/. The Foreign Ministry advises Russian nationals to follow the ministry’s reports in connection with the situation in Ukraine since provocations are not ruled out, the director of the Foreign Ministry’s Crisis Management Center, Yury Gorlach, told journalists on Monday.

When asked whether the center panned to issue special warnings for the Russians planning trips to Ukraine against the background of tensions in that country, Gorlach said that the agency "always recommends in this cases to follow reports by the Crisis Management Center, like it was also the case during the [January] developments in Kazakhstan".

"Of course, provocations are not ruled out, specifically from independent ‘actors’ in Ukraine," he noted.

The diplomat also stressed that recommendations of Western nations to their nationals to leave Ukraine are speculations that artificially exacerbate tensions. "The reason why they are doing this is not clear," Gorlach said.

Lately, Ukraine and the West have been increasingly echoing claims of an alleged possible Russian "invasion" of Ukraine ever more frequently. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov branded such information as an "empty and groundless" escalation of tensions, emphasizing that Russia does not pose a threat to anyone. That said, he didn’t exclude the possibility of provocations being whipped up in order to justify such claims and warned that attempts to resolve the problem in southeastern Ukraine through the use of force would have the most serious consequences.