Ukrainian authorities discussed the threat of “provocations” amid heightened tensions caused by the build-up of Russian troops around Ukraine’s borders and insisted that the threatened cities be protected.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, was asked at a press conference in the city of Kharkiv about possible provocations that Russia could blame on Ukraine, the so-called false flag operations.
“We are currently considering any issues. Every day we receive information from our services,” he said.
“We have heard about the Chernobyl until now [nuclear] station, we have heard about the territory of the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and about other facilities, both on our territory and in the occupied Crimea, and in the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk,” he said.
The Chernobyl area near the border with Belarus is an exclusion zone after the nuclear power plant disaster in 1986. Much of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions is under the control of pro-Russian separatists and has been under control since 2014.
“If we talk about a provocation that the Russian Federation will try to make, we know very well what we are talking about,” Danilov said.
“We do not know where this or that provocation can take place, in what form it will be realized,” he said.
“The Russian Federation has started a war in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and is now starting to tell nonsense that we will allegedly reclaim the Donetsk and Luhansk regions militarily. I want to emphasize again that we cannot do that because we are responsible for the civilian population said Danielov.
“I just don’t understand why the Russians need those ‘problems’ called our country? Believe me, we won’t give anyone anything,” he said. “They are aware of the position of our citizens for which we will fight for our [land.] … We have never attacked anyone in the history of our country. But we won’t give ours to anyone.”
Danilov said the city of Kharkov will be protected in case of invasion.
Speaking about the evacuation of state institutions, Danilov said. “To date, there are no reasons to delete or evacuate documents. If there are such reasons, the relevant institutions will immediately work in the right direction.”
“Now no one is going anywhere, because we don’t see any reasons for it today,” he added.