London. February 12. INTERFAX - British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said that he considers Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine a likely scenario, but at the same time did not rule out a move towards de-escalation, The Times wrote on Saturday.
The newspaper's article notes that, according to the minister, such an "invasion is very likely." Wallace also repeated the assessment made earlier by the United States, according to which the Russian Federation has enough forces near Ukraine to, if desired, "launch an offensive at any moment."
At the same time, the minister stressed that "it may well happen that Russia will simply "turn off" its tanks, and we will all be able to relax." Nevertheless, Wallace noted that a number of Western countries are alarmed.
In addition, Wallace, following similar statements by the US administration, said that according to London, "the Kremlin has not made a final decision on whether to attack Ukraine, but the situation does not look the best."
The British Defense Minister stressed that in his opinion, Russia should not rely on China's support in this case, since "a war in Europe will not be in Beijing's interests."
Earlier, a number of countries issued a recommendation to their citizens to immediately leave the territory of Ukraine for security reasons.
The day before, the adviser to the American president on national security, Jake Sullivan, made a statement that Russia, "if it makes such a decision, has the opportunity to attack Ukraine", "without waiting for the Olympics to end" in Beijing. At the same time, Sullivan, in his statement, among other things, claimed that, according to Washington, Russia "did not make a decision on how to deal with Ukraine." "I'm not saying that the final decision has been made," he said.
In turn, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on Saturday that the United States is artificially inflating the situation in connection with the allegedly planned Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia does not understand why the Americans are transmitting deliberately false information about this to the media.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, for her part, pointed out that Moscow regards the statements of the US President's national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Ukraine as hysterical, they believe that "the Anglo-Saxons need war at any cost." According to her, "provocations, disinformation and threats are a favorite method of solving their own problems."
