(Quote adjusted in para 3)
MOSCOW. April 8 (Interfax) - The start of military action in Donbas would mean the beginning of the end of Ukraine as a state, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Presidential Executive Office Dmitry Kozak said on Thursday.
Joining NATO will lead to Ukraine's disintegration, Kozak said.
"I support the opinions that also exist inside Ukraine that the start of military action would mean the beginning of Ukraine's end. It's a self-shot, a shot not in their own leg but in the head," Kozak said at a session the joint project of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations and Interfax called Russia and the World: A Professional Conversation.
The implementation of Kyiv's plans to join NATO will become "the beginning of Ukraine's disintegration," he said.
"Where is NATO, where is the conflict in Ukraine, where is logic?" Kozak said.