Stepan Poltorak: There are 8,000 Russian military in Ukraine

Actions of Russia in its aggression against Ukraine are hardly predictable.

It has been said by Ukraine’s Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak at a press-conference for foreign media, "Лiга.нет" informs.

“As for the Russian troops on the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions – we know that they are there. And there are from 6.5 to 8 thousands of military personnel there,” he said, adding that it is occupation, and therefore the attitude is appropriate.

“We are following actions all over the territory of Ukraine, including Crimea, and including the actions of the Russian side. That is why we certainly are going in accordance with the developments of the situation, and according to our capabilities,” he said, noting that the actions of Russia could hardly be predicted. “But we are monitoring the situation closely, we are in the picture.”

“As for the quantity of military groups together with terrorist groups – I would like to say that this acute, complicated, unpredictable situation, among others, is formed by units from Russia, I mean, [the situation] with supplies of food products, other means of existence, in order to use the local inhabitants later. They would have no other way out but to join illegal military groups. Recently, according to the information we have, as of today, just a few illegal military groups from people from Donetsk and Luhansk are left, up to 15-20%. The rest are mostly mercenaries, not only from Russia. The total number together with Russian ones is about 30,000 men,” the minister said.

“As for lethal armaments. We do not receive lethal armaments at the moment, none of the countries of the world supply them to us. We have interaction, but it does not concern lethal armaments. It concerns support, communications, other means, not lethal armaments,” Poltorak said.