MOSCOW | Ukraine’s president put his army on combat alert Thursday along the country’s de-facto borders with Crimea and separatist rebels in the east as a war of words between Russian Federation and Ukraine threatened to heat up the largely frozen conflict over the Black Sea peninsula.
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The move sparked Russia-backed separatists to begin fighting government forces in eastern Ukraine, where deadly battles still are ongoing.
On Wednesday, he said the FSB, the Federal Security Service that’s the main successor of the Soviet-era KGB, reported Ukrainian intelligence officers killed two Russian servicemen during a covert operation in Crimea.
“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.
Earlier, Mr Putin chaired a meeting with Russian security chiefs to discuss “additional measures for ensuring security for citizens and essential infrastructure in Crimea”, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, right, and Oleksandr Turchynov, Head of Ukraine’s Defence and Security Council, chair the Council extraordinary session in Kiev, Ukraine.
Kyiv has put its forces on the highest alert level in both eastern Ukraine and along the administrative border between Ukraine’s mainland and the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula.
Ukrainian authorities have denied the Russian charge, even though one of the arrested confessed on Russian television today.
Reasons could also include an attempt to pressure western countries, which have refused to recognize Russia’s takeover of Crimea, to end economic sanctions that have forced the world’s biggest energy-exporting economy into a two-year recession.
State Department spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau called the situation “very dangerous” and reiterated Washington’s position that “Crimea is part of Ukraine”. The 28-member bloc called on both sides to refrain from intensifying what has become the worst diplomatic standoff between the two countries since a 2015 truce eased hostilities in Ukraine’s separatist conflict.
Along the border of Ukraine and disputed Crimea, tensions are rising – again.
A Russian soldier also died in a firefight with “sabotage-terrorist” groups sent by the Ukrainian military on August 8, Moscow claimed.
Putin has said a mooted meeting with Poroshenko and mediators German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande at next month’s G20 summit in China was now “senseless”.
Medvedev said cutting diplomatic ties with Kiev was one option, but that no decision had yet been taken. USA ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt said Washington had so far seen nothing to corroborate Russia’s version. This situation signals an imminent threat to the peace and stability not only in Ukraine but also in the entire region. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation said it was closely monitoring the heightened tensions, and both it and the US said they had seen no evidence corroborating Russia’s allegations.
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Putin may also hope instability in Ukraine can feed into the United States presidential election campaign, where Republican candidate Donald Trump accuses President Barack Obama’s administration of incompetence and has called for better ties with Moscow.
