Head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence: No Russian offensive foreseen at present
At present, Russia is not planning to take large-scale military action against Ukraine, said General Mykola Malomuzh, former head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service between 2005 and 2010, in a comment to InfoResist.
In his opinion, Russian troops are being brought close to the Ukrainian border primarily for the psychological effect.
“First and foremost, I can say that lately Russia has been constantly expanding its contingents on the western borders for two reasons. The first reason is that they are receiving information that we are trying to conduct an offensive operation to liberate the territory. For this reason, they are already clearly not only giving signals that they will bring in troops if we attack, they are also moving new contingents of tank, armored, missile, rapid response and similar army corps there, a whole army. And so this first component is a possible response to our offensive operation.”
“The second component is that they are operating in the context of an overall idea, reinforcing the western borders in terms of possible resistance of NATO. Not yet in a combat format, but in the format of so-called deterrence, as they say. That is, this is a game of such military muscles, the deployment of new corps, brigades and regiments in order to show NATO that forces are being formed in the western region which were not previously present. This is more of a psychological factor,” Malomuzh observed.
Malomuzh said he does not believe that Russia is planning an attack.
“Concerning the real threat of an attack, at present we are very focused on the situation in this way. I just got back from Washington, I spoke to colleagues from the German, British, US and French intelligence. According to them and according to us, there is information that Russia is not planning any offensive operations in the next few months or weeks. Because it would cause the military system problems, victims, and even a collapse. Attacks by them today are not very realistic. If there is nothing more active on our part, those large contingents will not be used. Perhaps only partially, in individual sectors. But these would not be the scales that would create a real global threat to Ukraine today, and in future it may even switch to NATO,” he added.
He thus views the Russian system as a deterrent to offensive action by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“The pressure on us is psychological, when a new contingent is deployed, or forces are deployed, ready for a possible attack. But according to all our information, no real action is being planned to prepare for large-scale offensive operations today,” Malomuzh resumed.