MOSCOW, April 12. /TASS/. The United States is not interested in getting involved in a military conflict in the east of Ukraine, should it flare up, but instead it will shift the emphasis on provocative actions towards Crimea, the deputy director of the Institute of CIS Countries, Vladimir Zharikhin, told TASS on Monday.
"The United States will be providing advice to Ukraine, building military bases and staging provocations over Crimea. Also, it will shift the center of provocative actions towards the peninsula," he said about the likely march of events in the region.
Zharikhin recalled Kiev’s initiative for creating a Crimean Platform to coordinate efforts at the international level in an attempt to return the peninsula to its jurisdiction. Under Kiev’s plan the work of this platform is to begin with a so-called inauguration summit, due to take place in the Ukrainian capital on August 23. Also, two US ships are expected to arrive in the Black Sea in the near future.
Zharikhin suspects that tensions over Crimea may begin to mount soon.
"Some Ukrainian agents have already been detained for spying in Crimea and bringing explosives to the peninsula," Zharikhin said.
He predicts that the United States will be building up different pressures on Donbass, but at the same time refrain from interference in a military conflict there, should it flare up.
"In the near future, the United States will go ahead with information, economic and political pressure, but not military pressure for the time being, because it is well aware that Russia will participate in it with a good reason. NATO supports Ukraine but not to a point of going to war for it," he stressed.
The Western countries already interfere in the situation in Donbass, although to a different degree, Zharikhin concluded. "The scale of interference varies. There are supplies of military equipment and there are US military advisers," he said.