Russian Federation and Ukraine stepped up security on the de facto border between Crimea and mainland Ukraine on Thursday, a day after Moscow accused Kiev of planning terror attacks on the peninsula.
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Russian Federation annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 following a hastily called referendum, and a conflict between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces flared up in eastern Ukraine weeks later. According to reports in Ukrainian media, Panov is a former volunteer in the Ukrainian armed forces who fought in the war in eastern Ukraine against pro-Russian separatists.
Poroshenko hit back that Moscow’s claims were “senseless and cynical” and said the “fantasies are only another pretext for the next military threats toward Ukraine”.
Ukraine has built up its armed forces on the border with Crimea in accordance with President Poroshenko’s combat readiness order, the country’s chief of the general staff said.
World powers urged Russian Federation and Ukraine to refrain from ratcheting up a confrontation over Crimea after President Vladimir Putin blamed Kiev for pursuing “terror” activities on the disputed peninsula and threatened to retaliate.
Russia and Ukraine have both raised their combat alert near the Crimean administrative border, although analysts suspect that should a Russian advance occur, it is more likely it will be from separatist forces in Ukraine’s east, rather than regular Russian troops in Crimea.
Soon after, Krymtelekom – a Crimean telecom company – blamed the outages in Crimea near the border with Ukraine on routine maintenance.
Russia is said to be considering severing diplomatic ties with Ukraine with the Russian newspaper Izvestia reporting that “Moscow is considering this option”.
“We still think that while clearly Putin and Russian Federation have capability for some landgrab north of Crimea, it won’t serve the political ends of the Kremlin to begin an open war in Ukraine”, Alexander Kokcharov from IHS Jane’s 360 tells Newsweek.
It said another Russian soldier died in a firefight with “sabotage-terrorist” groups sent by the Ukrainian military on August 8.
He also said Wednesday that it makes no sense to discuss the implementation of the Minsk peace deal for eastern Ukraine with leaders of Ukraine, France and Germany at the sidelines of the Group of 20 meeting in China next month as had been planned earlier.
Not sure if our European leaders/politicians are all on their compulsory two-weeks compliance leave (if bankers have to take it, I am sure our leaders will take any similar gigs they can get – and by the way, I am not a fan), or just that no one has the balls to take on Putin as this just does not win votes domestically.
“A pretense of an anti-terrorism operation staged by Russia is more plausible than an actual Ukrainian attack on Crimea”, prominent Russian journalist Oleg Kashin wrote Thursday on Slon.ru.
Russia’s lead security agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), said it had detained several men – both Ukrainian and Russian citizens – and confiscated weapons in the alleged incursion.
“They are trying to distract attention onto other things”, he said.
In 1992 following the collapse of the communist regime Crimea declared independence but chose to remain part of Ukraine, though with its own parliament and government based in Simferopol.
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Russia’s defence ministry announced on Thursday that naval ships and helicopters were starting exercises in the Black Sea, where Crimea is located, on “repelling an attack by underwater saboteurs”.
