Today at 17:22
Damages exceed 12 billion hryvnias. This was caused by panic in the media, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a press conference with foreign media. He called up the media representatives to react in a balanced way to the data about the situation in Ukraine. Namely the mass circulation of the claims about the possible war is sending the markets into an unreasonable fear.
This was reported by the corespondents of UA.
“After the start of a different information environment – 12 and a half billion hryvnias has been withdrawn from Ukraine. And we are out of our reserves – and they are the biggest in the last ten years. But nevertheless, you have to understand – our state is not able to cope with these challenges on its own – that is, we are stabilizing our national currency from our state reserves. Are tanks driving here on our streets? No. But it feels like this, if you’re not here, then you feel like this” – Volodymyr Zelensky said.
He also urged western countries on imposing restrictive measures against Russia retentively, criticizing the position the White House saying sanctions to show up as a response after the launch of an full-scale invasion.
“What does sanctions after mean? By the way, this question is addressed not only to president Biden. I don’t have special asks to him in this question. A number of European countries stress the same positions. While a number of countries state on precise actions, that can be taken for the prevention” – Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Pieces of a fragmented information picture are becoming a pretext for global conclusions. For example, the Wall Street Journal wrote today about the arrival of units of Russian field medics to the Ukrainian border. The publication described it as the final stage in preparations for an invasion.
“Moscow has put what appear to be final preparations for an invasion of Ukraine by sending medical units to the front, moving to a level of readiness that it hadn’t reached in past buildups, according to Western defense officials” – the Wall Street Journal wrote .
The CNN outlet citing the unknown sources in the Ukrainian government wrote about imminent invasion in Ukraine. Allegedly this was said by President Biden to his Ukrainian counterpart during the telephone call.
“A call between US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday “did not go well” – CNN wrote.
However, both Kyiv and Washington officially disproved the CNN source. The intelligence data does not indicate a significant change in the situation on the borders. The Ukrainian Defense Minister said today there are differences between the reports of different countries, and they are related to “the distance of deployment and the interpretation of this distance”: Ukraine states a distance of the hardware from the border equals up to 200 kilometers, while others specify a distance of up to 400 kilometers.
“As of right now, there are no military events or activities that are noticeably different from what happened last spring before Easter. The only difference in military terms that we are following very closely is the situation in Belarus.An agreement can still be reached. NATO hopes so. However, if Russia risks doing something similar to what happened in Georgia in 2008 or in Ukraine in 2014, the alliance will respond” – the Ukrainian Defense Minister said.
“Well, there’s no certainty about the Russian plans. Maybe they haven’t made any final decision. From the NATO side, we are ready to engage in political dialogue, but we are also ready to respond if Russia chooses an armed conflict, confrontation. So we are ready for both options. We are working hard for the best peaceful political solution, but we also prepared for the worst” – Stoltenberg said.
According to the minister, Ukrainian intelligence observes a contingent of 112, and with the naval and aviation component it is about 130 thousand people. Last April, the combat component that Russia was deploying totaled 126,000 people.
Read also: Russia’s Military Escalation Against Ukraine (LIVE UPDATES)
