KIEV, January 31. /TASS/. Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov said there were currently no signs that Russia, as is expected by the West, would invade Ukraine.
"As of today, a strike group hasn’t been formed by the armed forces of the Russian Federation," he said in an interview that was published by the Levy Bereg news organization on Monday. "Any military expert will tell you that a strike group has several signs. There’s no combination of these signs as of today."
He also said that doesn’t mean these signs won’t appear tomorrow, "if that’s the decision by the Kremlin."
"Their potential enables them to form a strike group, but that will take time," he said.
There has been a flurry of statements in the West and Kiev lately that Russia could invade Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they were unsubstantiated escalation and that Russia doesn’t threaten anyone. At the same time, he didn’t rule out provocations to corroborate these Western statements and warned that the use of force to resolve the crisis in southeastern Ukraine will have serious consequences.
Russia proposed concluding legally binding agreements with the US and NATO that would provide mutual security guarantees due to the ongoing "military utilization" of the Ukrainian territory by the alliance. There have been several rounds of talks, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during an in-person meeting that Russia wasn’t going to attack Ukraine.