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Moscow has no plans to invade Ukraine, says Russian Ambassador

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Moscow has no plans to invade Ukraine, Russian Ambassador to Cyprus Stanislav Osadchiy told CNA in an interview on Tuesday.

“Russian troops are on Russian territory and pose no threat,” he added.

Osadchiy also accused western media of stocking “hysteria” over Ukraine and said western countries hope to avoid the questions Moscow is posing over “vital issues” concerning European security.

NATO, he added, is trying to approach the Russian border at a distance which “from our point of view, is unacceptable for Russia’s security.”

“We fully understand that if Brussels puts forward new sanctions, Cyprus will be obliged to vote in favor…without any doubt this will not add warmth in Cyprus-Russia relations,” he also said.

The Ambassador then said the rhetoric of western media over the past one and a half months has been accurately described as “hysteria” by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“We even heard specific dates that the US, NATO and EU are predicting the start of a so-called military offensive by Russia…Russian troops are stationed in their own territory and pose no threat,” he said.

Repeating Lavrov’s words, the Ambassador said “we don’t want a war.”

He further pointed to a situation which he described as being in the verge of “insanity” and noted that even Ukraine’s President Zelensky “appears to have been scared by so much tension”.

Zelensky was forced to call on everyone to calm down, and even tried to persuade US President Joe Biden that the Ukrainian side has no information pointing to preparations for an offensive, he said.

Osadchiy reiterated a recent statement by Lavrov who said “if it depends on the Russian Federation, there will be no war.”

Asked about efforts for a permanent ceasefire, the Ambassador said all of them failed due to the Ukrainian side, as reported by the OSCE special monitoring mission.

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