VIENNA, May 30. /TASS/. NATO can only understand that Russia will react to the possible deployment of Western troops in Ukraine, Russia's Deputy Permanent Representative to the OSCE Maxim Buyakevich said.

"Individual NATO countries are speculating about their readiness to send their regular military units to Ukraine. All this is leading to a direct clash between NATO and Russia on Russian soil. The fact that our country will find ways to effectively respond to such escalatory steps should be clear even to the ideologues of military intervention," the diplomat said at a meeting of the organization's Permanent Council.

According to him, "the West does not need Ukraine, neither as an EU member nor as a full NATO member state."

"Kiev will not receive invitations to these structures in the foreseeable future. However, together with its population, resources and territory, Ukraine, which has not been completely exhausted, is still needed in the role of a tool in the struggle against Russian statehood," Buyakevich added.