Military expert and blogger Oleksiy Arestovych has said Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for new large-scale aggression and another serious escalation can be expected during the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Yet, Arestovych assures, Russia is not going to display aggression while the 2018 World Cup is under way, though there was much talk about a possible escalation pending the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and a number of security measures were taken, such as limited movement in the frontline areas, strong border control, transportation of cargo and most of the bus traffic were blocked.
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"The whole world already knows they like to attack under the cover of sports competitions: Crimea was annexed during the Olympics, Georgia was attacked during the Olympics, so I think the next goal is the 2020 Olympics, then we should expect big trouble. And now, they will make a pause so that everyone could see sports competitions are over, all of you were so afraid that we were going to attack, but you see, nothing has happened, we are a peaceful nation, sports are above all for us. Not a single fan has suffered from any Russian bully, but the British fans in Kyiv were beaten. So you should not say that we are going to escalate something at the front," he said in an interview with the news portal Apostrophe.
"The main message is that Russia was slandered, because it is actually a very civilized and very cultured country that simply defends its interests, these are fascists in Ukraine. And Spanish and British fans, drinking beer in the street of Rostov, think: 'Well, they have slandered Russia, and it is so cool.' And all of this is during the gentle seizure of the Sea of Azov, i.e. they are still taking military actions, just not there and not such as we expected," the military expert said.
