NATO Secretary General, when asked about Russia's possible open aggression against Ukraine, says Moscow already demonstrated such possibility.

BRUSSELS. Nov 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg evades the question of a possible direct invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, but states that Russia has previously demonstrated a willingness to use its armed forces for aggressive actions against Ukraine.

This follows from his answer to the question of whether he can provide details regarding the buildup of Russian forces near the Ukrainian border and whether he believes that there may be a direct invasion of the Russian army into Ukraine, which journalists asked in Brussels on Monday, following the meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba.

"I I cannot go into details about our intelligence. And I think it is important also that we don’t now increase tensions, but we have to be clear eyed, we need to be realistic about the challenges we face. And what we see is significant large Russian military build-up. We see an unusual concentration of troops. And we know that Russia has been willing to use these types of military capabilities before to conduct aggressive actions against Ukraine," Stoltenberg said.

He said that he means both the direct armed forces of Russia, located near the border of Ukraine, and the deployment of the Russian armed forces directly on Ukrainian territory, in the illegally annexed Crimea, and through the support of servicemen in Ukrainian Donbas.

"The fact that we see this military build-up also reduces any warning time between a decision in Russia, before they’re able to actually conduct a military aggressive action against Ukraine," the NATO Secretary General said.

In this regard, he reiterated his call to Russia "to be transparent about their military activities, to reduce tensions, and to prevent any escalation." "This is a clear message from all NATO Allies," Stoltenberg said.

Answering a question whether he considers the buildup of the Russian military presence around Ukraine and the migration crisis created by the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as part of Russia’s hybrid operation against NATO, the NATO Secretary General said: "The important thing now is to prevent escalation, is to prevent these situations spiralling and coming out of control and we are deeply concerned about the situation and we follow that very closely. As we follow the developments in and around Ukraine."