Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said the U.S. hasn’t seen any evidence to support Ukrainian involvement and added that sanctions on Russian Federation would remain until Crimea is returned by to Ukraine.
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Russian Federation annexed the Black Sea peninsula in March 2014 following a hastily called referendum.
As soon as Russian Federation forced the last Ukrainian troops based in Crimea to leave in 2014, Moscow began setting up fortified border crossings and sending weapons to the peninsula – from cutting-edge fighter jets to the newest missile defense systems.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor agency to the Soviet KGB, charged that two Russian servicemen were killed in separate armed clashes with groups of Ukrainian spies over the weekend.
Putin met with his security council and pledged “additional measures for ensuring security for citizens and essential infrastructure in Crimea”.
The UN Security Council was to discuss the growing tensions later on Thursday at the request of Ukraine, a non-permanent council member.
Ukraine’s forces have in turn been put on combat alert on the Crimean border. “In fact, our security services prevented an incursion into the territory by a sabotage-reconnaissance group from Ukraine’s defense ministry”, Putin said.
He added that he hoped the Ukrainians would be prudent enough to avoid a further escalation, but expressed doubt that would happen.
The EU and USA have imposed strict economic sanctions on Russian Federation over the Ukraine crisis, but Putin is carrying on regardless.
The ramping up of military tension comes as Ukraine is preparing to celebrate 25 years of independence from the Soviet Union on 24 August 2016, and as the United States is roughly 12 weeks away from a contentious presidential election in which relations with Russian Federation have been an incendiary focal point.
The timing of the flareup perplexed military and political analysts, as it followed efforts by Putin to break Russia’s global isolation, including a push to fix ties with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that frayed after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter on the Syrian border previous year.
“The aim of the sabotage and terrorist attacks was to destabilize the social and political situation” ahead of elections in Russian Federation and Crimea next month, it said.
The Russian intelligence said Wednesday that two people were killed while fending off what it described as a series of attempted attacks in Crimea by Ukrainian “saboteurs”.
Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst in Ukraine, said: “Putin will scare the West with the prospect of full-scale conflict with Ukraine”.
Along the border of Ukraine and disputed Crimea, tensions are rising – again.
In Ukraine, the detained man’s brother had earlier said he thought his brother had been kidnapped as part of “a big game”.
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Other motivations could include bolstering domestic support before Russia’s September 18 parliamentary elections, providing a distraction before Ukraine’s 25th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union on August 24, or maneuvering to stoke tensions before the U.S. Presidential elections in November, Ash said.
