Potential military operation of Russia to include large segment of actions in Black Sea – Kuleba

KYIV. Nov 29 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The potential military operation of Russia will include a large segment of military operations in the Black Sea, so Russia’s aggressive behavior is not only a problem for Ukraine, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said.

"According to the information available to us, a potential military operation undertaken by Russia will involve a large segment of hostilities in the Black Sea. Therefore, Romania and other partners in the Black Sea, in our opinion, should be as concerned about Russia’s plans as Ukraine, and so as committed to containing Russia as we are committed to," Kuleba said in an online briefing on Monday.

The minister said that Russia’s aggressive behavior is not only a problem for Ukraine.

"This is also a big problem for our closest neighbors and partners," he said.

Kuleba said that Russia uses gas as a weapon to aggravate the energy crisis in Europe, uses migrants as a weapon to escalate tensions on the Belarusian border with Lithuania and Poland, intensifies cyberattacks and disinformation, and tries to destabilize the internal situation in Ukraine.

"All of these elements are part of Russia’s efforts to seriously destabilize regional security. In a worst-case scenario, Russia could try to undermine the entire post-Cold War security architecture in Europe and redraw its borders by force again, as it did in 2008 in Georgia and in 2014. year, when she occupied the Ukrainian Crimea and started a war in the eastern region of Ukraine, in the Donbass," he said.

The minister believes that Russia is acting in this way now, since it sees an opportunity to act according to this plan.

"Our key European allies – Germany and France – are focused on their internal affairs. In Germany, elections have recently taken place, and in France, elections will take place soon. The Russian geopolitical project of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is at the certification stage. Vladimir Putin believes that the West is weak and indecisive, especially now. He can be sure that this is the right moment to shift the balance of power in the region for his own purposes. I believe we must prove the opposite to him, and we can do it. The main goal now is to contain Russia and demotivate her from further aggressive actions, "Kuleba said.

According to him, in order to achieve this goal, Ukraine has offered its partners a comprehensive containment package of three levels, consisting of political containment, economic containment and security containment.

Kuleba indicated that Ukraine is calling on partners "to start a discussion on specific economic restrictions for Russia, which will be immediately applied as soon as Moscow decides to launch a new military offensive against Ukraine," and also calls on partners to "deepen cooperation with Ukraine in the security and defense sectors." …

"The stronger Ukraine is, the less likely Russia will risk another large-scale military attack," he concluded.