Russia will attack Ukraine the very moment it joins intergovernmental military alliance NATO, Fyodor Lukyanov, a top foreign policy expert leading the Moscow-based Council for Foreign and Defense Policies, said Wednesday.
In his article, the research director at Putin-linked think tank, the Valdai International Discussion Club, explained the recent movements of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border and warned of a "new conflict" if the military alliance makes a decision to expand its influence further to the east.
Lukyanov said that the risk of potential military conflict increases significantly when non-NATO countries "like Ukraine" begin to play the same game as other countries within the alliance.
"It is hard to imagine that the nightmarish scenarios crafted by the bloc’s junior partners to alarm their patrons could ever be proven right," he writes. "They routinely insist Putin wants to test the boundaries with NATO by attacking the Baltic states and Poland."
He warned that if NATO expands to the east, "Russia will have to change the system and draw new red lines."
"NATO expansion has created a new military and political landscape. Keeping things as they are could lead to new conflicts while abandoning the belief that the bloc calls all the shots will require a drastic revision of all approaches," Lukyanov added, underlining that "gambit," which escalated into the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, when Moscow invaded on the grounds of provocation, could be replicated in Ukraine.
"The terrifying picture now emerging is that in mid-winter mass Russian forces would invade Ukraine through Belarus in the north and up through Crimea in the south, heading towards the capital Kyiv, an encirclement operation, splitting the country in two," Lukyanov said. "In reality, Moscow seems to believe the bloc will honor its obligation more than those in Riga or Tallinn do – but when non-members, like Ukraine, start playing this game as well, the risk of a potential military conflict grows far higher."
Following the article, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba explained that the task of Ukrainian diplomats is to restrain Russia from "further aggressive actions."
Speaking during a briefing on Thursday, Kuleba said Russia must understand that a new attack on its neighbor would be too costly.
"The main goal is to restrain Russia from further aggressive actions. To do this, Moscow must clearly understand what political, economic and human losses it will incur in the event of a new stage of aggression," Kuleba told a televised briefing.
Kuleba assured that the Foreign Ministry is working almost around the clock to maintain and strengthen international support for Ukraine, primarily in matters of military and security cooperation.
The minister also explained that the accumulation of Russian troops on the border, intensive aerial reconnaissance, threats from Russian officials at various levels, Russia's deliberate blocking of the Normandy format should be considered as components of Moscow's unified aggressive policy against Ukraine.
Russia seized and occupied Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and remains the de facto authority there. Moscow also that year began to support separatist forces in eastern Ukraine against the central government, a policy that it has maintained over the past seven years.