KIEV, February 20. /TASS/. Ukraine’s intelligence sees no Russian attack force units at the border, Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov said on Sunday.
"As of today, our intelligence observes no attack force units but it doesn’t mean that they cannot deploy them when they want because the risks are still in place," he said in an interview with ICTV. According to the minister, it may take from one to two weeks to deploy such units, "depending on Russia’s plans."
He stressed that Ukraine and its partners will know without fail if any attack force units are deployed at the border.
The situation along the contact line in eastern Ukraine took a turn for the worse in the morning of February 17. The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics report the most massive shelling by the Ukrainian military over the past months. There have been no reports of deaths, but one civilian woman was wounded and the shelling damaged some civilian facilities.
Amid the mounting threat of combat actions, the self-proclaimed republics on Friday announced the evacuation of civilians to Russia. On Saturday, the Donbass republics announced general mobilization.
The West and Kiev have recently been echoing allegations about Russia’s potential invasion of Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov castigated these claims as "empty and unfounded", serving as a ploy to escalate tensions, pointing out that Russia did not pose any threat whatsoever to anyone. However, Peskov did not rule out the possibility of provocations aimed at justifying such claims and warned that attempts to use military force to resolve the crisis in southeastern Ukraine would have serious consequences.