LONDON, February 2. /TASS/. Russia's Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy has said that the intelligence data from the US and the UK relating to the build-up of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border is not credible.
"Now it is already 130,000 [Russian servicemen on the border with Ukraine]. I see that inflation is very high these days, it was 100,000 yesterday," the Russian envoy told Sky News on Wednesday. "I don't know where they take these figures from and we have absolutely no trust in the intelligence data from the US and from the UK."
According to the Russian diplomat, "this is the same intelligence that claimed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The hysteria doesn't stop, it's absolutely happening in the heads of Western politicians."
Speaking about the situation around Ukraine, the Russian envoy expressed doubt that London could help reduce tensions. "There is always room for diplomacy, but frankly, we don't trust British diplomacy. I think in recent years British diplomacy has shown that it is absolutely worthless," Polyanskiy noted. "I really don't want to offend anybody, especially my good friends, British diplomats, but really, the results are nothing to boast about," he insisted.
Polyanskiy also pointed out that Western states were not ready for the serious consideration of Moscow's proposals on security guarantees. "If you close your eyes, of course, it's difficult to read anything," he said. "It's up to our American friends, whether to open these eyes," the diplomat mentioned.
Concerns over Moscow's alleged preparations for an invasion of Ukraine have been increasingly expressed in the West and in Kiev recently. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov castigated these statements as an empty and groundless escalation of tension, emphasizing that Russia posed no threat to anyone. At the same time, the Kremlin press secretary did not exclude some possible provocations to justify such claims and warned that the attempts to resolve the Ukrainian conflict by force would carry extremely serious consequences.