Fighting also broke out in 2014 in Ukraine’s eastern regions, the former stronghold of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s elected government, in the wake of Kyiv’s change of leadership.
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Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer says if the Kremlin wanted to make gains or solidify its positions in Ukraine, now would be a good moment because the world’s attention is elsewhere.
President Vladimir Putin appears to have put his best advisers on the case, bolstering hopes that 2016 will be the year the stalled Minsk II agreements, negotiated by France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine to bring peace to war-ravaged eastern Ukraine, gain real traction.
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”.
Russian officials shut off internet access on Thursday 11 August in the north of Crimea near the border town of Armyansk, where Russia’s FSB claims to have stopped Ukrainian spies.
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.
Russia’s Federal Security Service said Wednesday that it had thwarted the incursion over the weekend, saying two Russians were killed in the incident.
“The situation for now, however, is moving clearly in the direction of open conflict between Ukrainian and Russian forces in Donbas or elsewhere in Ukraine”.
Despite that and the conflict in the east, which has killed more than 9,500 people, Kiev and Moscow did not break diplomatic ties.
Ukraine dismissed the claim, terming the allegations as Moscow’s attempt to justify its alleged re-deployment of troops and actions in the region. Putin said he was merely “stationing” troops on the border to protect ethnic Russians, before invading Crimea and illegally annexing it.
Kiev was accused by Putin of playing a unsafe game and he reveals that there is no point in holding a peace talk on the troubled region.
It was annexed by Russian Federation in 2014 following a referendum, which was recognized by Moscow but rejected by Ukraine and Western powers.
In Washington, US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau voiced concern about the buildup of tensions.
Global peace talks over Ukraine, once the mechanism by which Mr. Putin forced contact with Western leaders who had shunned him over annexing Crimea, have become increasingly regarded as fruitless and irrelevant.
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The FSB also said two more groups tried to force their way into Ukraine on Monday, using Ukrainian artillery and armour.
