'Don't panic', Ukraine's Zelenskyy tells West amid fears of Russian invasion
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on the West to remain calm over the tensions with Russia, in spite of the suspicions that it plans to invade his country.
"We don't need this panic" because "we need to stabilise the economy" of the former Soviet republic, the Ukrainian leader said during a news conference for foreign media on Friday afternoon.
He was speaking as diplomatic efforts continued to defuse the crisis brought by the build-up of Russian forces on Ukraine's borders. The temperature has been cranked up a notch since Wednesday when Washington and NATO both rejected Moscow's demands for security guarantees in Europe.
"The probability of the attack exists, it has not disappeared and it was not less serious in 2021," but "we do not see a higher escalation than the one which existed last year," Zelenskyy said.
The president chided international media and "even respected heads of state", who would have people believe that there was already a war all over the country, "that there are troops advancing on the roads. But that's not the case," he added.
"This panic, how much is it costing our country?" he asked.
"The biggest risk for Ukraine" is "the destabilisation of the situation inside the country," Zelenskyy argued, rather than Western fears of a Russian invasion of the former Soviet republic.
The message echoes others from the authorities in Kyiv this week, where people are used to living with the threat from Russia and are trying to live their lives as normally as possible.
Thousands of Ukrainians have expressed their resolve to stand up to Russian pressure under the hashtag #UkrainiansWillResist on Twitter and Facebook.
On Thursday US President Joe Biden told Zelenskyy that there was "a distinct possibility
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