© Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/KJN
Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu has ruled an armed standoff with Ukraine out as "impossible" but added that violations of Minsk Accords by Kiev could aggravate the crisis and lead to the "genocide" of ethnic Russians in Donbass.
"I consider it impossible that a direct clash emerges between Russia and Ukraine," Shoygu stated in his interview with Italian news outlet Il Giornale. The Russian official emphasized that the Kiev regime must unconditionally observe the Minsk agreements as this was the main condition for preventing the genocide of the ethnic Russian population of the south-eastern parts of Ukraine. "Unfortunately, Kiev authorities are very persistent in their attempts to balk at the fulfillment of these agreements, finding various invented excuses and making unfounded accusations in Russia's address," he said.
Shoygu also noted that the
Kiev regime was completely rejecting one very important condition of the settlement - the possibility of a dialogue with the self-proclaimed republics of Donbass. "Of course, our country reacts to the existing situation by constantly calling on Kiev to observe the complex of measures described in the Minsk accords," he said. The Russian minister also expressed hope that other guarantors of the Minsk accords, such as Germany and France would use their influence on Ukrainian authorities to press for peaceful settlement of the conflict.
In the same interview the Russian defense minister said that
Western nations, and first of all the United States, had planned to destabilize situation in Crimea using "hybrid warfare" methods similar to those used in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya and Syria.
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