The NATO official said Thursday that “Russia’s recent military activity in Crimea is not helpful for easing tensions”.
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The Federal Security Service, the FSB, said that teams of commandos from Ukraine’s defense forces made two attempts to enter the Black Sea peninsula, with the intention of sabotaging vital infrastructure.
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. In response to the alleged operation, Mr. Putin said he was pulling out of the global peace talks on the conflict and was no longer ready to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, the German and the French leaders in the so-called Normandy format, which has been used for negotiations.
Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine on Wednesday of using terrorist tactics to try to provoke a new conflict and destabilise annexed Crimea after Russian Federation said it had thwarted two armed Ukrainian attempts to get saboteurs into the contested peninsula.
Ukraine’s president has ordered the army to be on combat alert on the country’s de-facto border with Crimea and on the front line in eastern Ukraine following Moscow’s accusations that Ukraine sent in “saboteurs” to carry out attacks in Crimea. Russian Federation has criticized Ukraine for not fully implement the Minsk II agreement in full. “These fantasies are only another pretext for the next military threats toward Ukraine”, his office quoted him as saying.
“The temptation is high to try and use this occasion to solve the Ukrainian problem once and for all”, he said.
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.
A border shift commander told monitors that traffic from Crimea has not been allowed through on the Crimean side. Hardly any disturbances or let alone cross-border shootings have been reported in Crimea since the annexation. Russian Federation seized and annexed the territory from Ukraine in March 2014. But after Poroshenko was elected in May 2014, Putin began to call the Ukrainian government “partners”.
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“The main issue is what is going to happen to the Minsk talks – whether Russian Federation will stop them or start asking for more concessions”, respected daily Vedomosti said in an editorial Thursday.
