“Russian accusations towards Ukraine of terrorism in the occupied Crimea sound as preposterous and cynical as the statements of the Russian leadership about the absence of the Russian troops in Donbass (region of Ukraine)”, said Mr. Poroshenko, according to Reuters.
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After an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, Ukrainian ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko said Russian Federation has 40,000 troops in Crimea with “bad intentions”. He also sought to speak with other leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose Foreign Ministry called the events in Crimea “worrying”. Also in July, US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Ukraine for talks with Poroshenko, where he reiterated Washington’s support for the Kiev regime’s claims on Crimea.
Russian Federation says it caught infiltrators after at least two armed clashes on the border between Crimea and Ukraine over the weekend, and one of its soldiers and an FSB security service employee were killed.
In this screen grab taken from footage provided by the Russian Federal Security Service Press Service, a handcuffed man identified as Yevgeny Panov, suspected of being involved in a group that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) identified as Ukrainian ‘saboteurs, ‘ is led by FSB officers in Crimea, on Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016.
Addressing a meeting with the heads of Ukraine’s security services and Foreign Ministry on August 11, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko spoke about the need to step up OSCE SMM monitors’ presence near the administrative border in Crimea and demanded that Russian Federation provide SMM monitors with access to facilities on the peninsula. This situation signals an imminent threat to the peace and stability not only in Ukraine but also in the entire region. As Crimea is the historic base of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, it has always had a large deployment of the country’s military.
A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation official says the US -led alliance is deeply concerned by rising tensions between Russian Federation and Ukraine and is monitoring the situation closely. Kiev has called Panov a “hostage”.
Poroshenko ordered the Foreign Ministry to organize phone calls with Putin and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
The latest war of words represents the most serious increase in tensions in months as a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine – that Kiev and the West blame on Moscow – drags on despite a stalled peace deal.
The Russian Navy was planning to hold exercises in the Black Sea to practise repelling underwater attacks by saboteurs, Russian news agencies on Thursday cited the defence ministry as saying.
Independent Russian daily Vedomosti wrote in an op-ed that Moscow has tended to ramp up tensions ahead of negotiations over Ukraine.
“It does not make sense to gather during the G-20”, Vladislav Deynego, representative of pro-Russian rebels in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, said by phone. The main political question now is what will happen to the Minsk process.
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“Will Russia bring an end to it or demand new concessions?”
