LONDON, January 21. /TASS/. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss thinks that the purported invasion of Ukraine will lead to a prolonged crisis and fatalities, the PA news agency quoted her as saying at Sydney’s Lowy Institute think tank on Friday.
She said that the "invasion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life, as we know from the Soviet-Afghan war and conflict in Chechnya," insisting that the "Kremlin has not learned the lessons of history."
The UK top diplomat who is visiting Australia together with UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace urged Moscow to engage in "meaningful discussions" over the alleged concentration of Russian armed forces on the border with Ukraine.
In her speech, she branded China and Russia as "global aggressors" who, according to her, are "emboldened in a way we haven’t seen since the Cold War." "They seek to export dictatorship as a service around the world," the diplomat said adding that "that is why regimes like Belarus, North Korea and Myanmar find their closest allies in Moscow and Beijing."
"We need to work with partners like Australia, Israel, India, Japan, Indonesia and more. By building closer ties with our friends and drawing other countries closer to the orbit of free-market democracies, will ultimately make us all safer and freer in the years to come. It is time for the free world to stand its ground," she asserted.
Lately, in the West and Ukraine, the claims of an alleged possible Russian "invasion" into Ukrainian territory are being touted increasingly more often. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov branded such information as the empty and groundless escalation of tension, emphasizing that Russia does not represent 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.