President of Ukraine: “We do not need this panic” due to tensions with Russia

the president of ukrainian Volodimir Zelensky, asked Western countries this Friday to avoid fomenting “panic” in the face of the concentration of Russian troops on the border with their country. “We don’t need this panic”, he declared in a press conference with foreign media, pointing out that it is necessary to avoid further damaging the economy of Ukraine.

“The probability of attack exists, has not disappeared and was not less serious in 2021“, but “we do not see any escalation higher than the one that already existed” last year, Zelensky stressed.

On the other hand, if one listens to the international media and “even respected heads of state“, it would seem “we already have a war” in all the country, “that there are troops advancing on the roads. But it is not like that”, he added.

“The biggest risk for Ukraine” is “the destabilization of the internal situation”, rather than the threat of a Russian invasion, Zelensky insisted. “This panic, how much is it going to cost our country?“, he asked himself.

The West has been accusing Russia for weeks of having concentrated some 100,000 soldiers on the border with Ukraine in the face of a possible invasion of its neighbor, and has threatened Moscow with harsh sanctions if it carries out an offensive.

“Everything suggests” that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, “will use military force at some point, perhaps between now and mid-February”, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman considered on Wednesday.

Several Western embassies, including those of the United States and Canada, announced that they have recalled some of their staff in Ukraine, due to the threat of a Russian invasion.

In addition, eastern Ukraine has been the scene of a war with pro-Russian separatists since 2014, a conflict that broke out shortly after Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and has left more than 13,000 dead. The West accuses Moscow of supporting the separatists, but the Kremlin denies this.