Patrushev: There is a threat that Ukrainian bands may penetrate Russian borderline regions

There is a threat that Ukrainian bands may penetrate Russia’s Bryansk, Belgorod, Voronezh and Kursk regions, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolay Patrushev said on Apr 21.

He said that there was little hope that the conflict in Ukraine would come to end soon. “The United States and its allies will hardly stop their pressure on Russia. Quite the opposite, they will tighten it. The West is using the conflict in Ukraine for weakening Russia’s influence in the world,” Patrushev said.

“All this is generating new threats and strategic risks for Russia and requires coordinated efforts, particularly, a system of measures to restructure our economy, to substitute some imported goods, to support our strategic companies and SMEs,” Patrushev said.

According to him, for more than a year Russia has faced massive political, economic and information pressure. “They in the West hope that this will force Russia to change its foreign and domestic policies and will prevent it from protecting its vital interests,” Patrushev said.

He said that the Ukrainian authorities were doing nothing for peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donbass. “On the contrary, they are going to choke Donbass and to ruin the common past of our brotherly nations. In the meantime, Russia is doing its best to settle the conflict. We have given shelter to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens who have fled the current radical regime in Kyiv. We have already sent to Donbass as many as 24 trains with humanitarian cargo. We also keep urging the Kyiv authorities and the West to comply with the Minsk agreements,” Patrushev said.