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Russia will be forced to protect the residents of Donbass if Ukrain launches full-scale hostilities against the region, said the Deputy chief of staff of Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
Dmitry Kozak claimed that a ramping-up of the conflict would lead to the end of Ukraine, with the Kremlin forced to stand up for its citizens living in the territory of Donbass.
"Everything depends on what the scale of fighting will be. If there is, as the president says, a Srebrenica, we will be forced to stand up for ourselves," Kozak told RT, referring to Putin's comment in 2019 that he fears a genocide in Donetsk and Lugansk, if Kyiv regains control of Donbass.
Russia now has more troops on Ukraine's eastern border than at any time since 2014, according to the U.S. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
Many Ukrainian citizens applied for a Russian passport after Moscow simplified the process in 2020.
(CGTN)
