MOSCOW. Feb 16 (Interfax) - The Kremlin estimates the current level of the threat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' attack on the Donbas self-proclaimed republics as high.
"The high level of this threat persists," Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked to comment on the likelihood of such a scenario.
Upon being asked whether the Kremlin believes that this threat has decreased in the past few weeks, Peskov said, "No."
Russia "is doing all it can to draw our interlocutors' attention to this dangerous concentration [of Ukrainian armed forces on the contact line in Donbas]," he said.
"We are drawing our interlocutors' attention to the fact that a military operation, an attempt to resolve the situation in the south-east [of Ukraine] by force is quite probable. This probability is high, it is real, and, unfortunately, the whole world and us already witnessed how Kyiv once started a military operation in Donbas," Peskov said.
In other words, "Kyiv started a civil war in its own territory. We have already seen such precedents," he said.