MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/. Russia’s principled position in Donbas has actually prevented a Balkan scenario of 1999, Russian lawmaker said on Monday.

"The situation might have been much worse than in the Balkans. Russia, its principled position has prevented a repetition of the 1999 scenario, when NATO troops came down on Yugoslavia without any mandate from the United Nations," Frants Klintsevich, the first deputy leader of the United Russia faction in the Russian State Duma lower parliament house and a member of the Duma defense committee, told journalists, commenting on pronouncements by the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini who said earlier on Monday that the situation in Ukraine was the worst crisis in Europe since the Balkan wars.

Klintsevich said that NATO’s attacks in Ukraine might have led the world community to a "big war."