State news agencies quoted Mr Medvedev as saying that he would not like the ties to be severed but “if there is no other way to change the situation, the president could take this step”.
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Both sides have since stepped up security in the peninsula, whose annexation by Moscow in 2014 saw relations plunge to a post-Cold War nadir and served as the prelude to armed conflict between pro-Russian separatists and government troops in Ukraine’s east. Poroshenko rejected the Russian claims as “fantasy” and “a provocation”.
“To my mind, this is undoubtedly a crime committed against the Russian state and the people of Russia living on one of its territories – Crimea”, Medvedev said.
Mogherini, who spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin Friday afternoon, said the European Union and its member states “will continuously assess the situation, including at the level of the Political and Security Committee next Wednesday”, according to the statement.
A spokesman for the Kremlin said: “The antiaircraft missile regiment of the 4th Air Force and Air Defense Army of the Southern Military District based in the Republic of Crimea has received a modern S-400 Triumf air defence missile system for operation”.
Ukraine’s security service on Friday raised the terrorist threat level to the highest in Crimea and the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, where pro-Russian rebels have been fighting government troops for more than two years.
Ukraine put its troops along the country’s de-facto borders with Crimea and separatist rebels in the east on combat alert on Thursday.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday that Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told his Russian counterpart, Mr Sergey Lavrov, that France and Germany would “continue efforts aimed at implementing the Minsk agreements in the Normandy format”, which includes the four countries.
As soon as Russian Federation forced the last Ukrainian troops based in Crimea to leave in 2014, Moscow set up fortified border crossings and sent new weapons to the peninsula – from cutting-edge fighter jets to the newest missile systems.
Russia’s Interfax news agency said the missiles were created to hit airborne targets up to 400km away, and ballistic missiles at a range of up to 60km flying at speeds of up to 4.8km per second.
Ukraine denies the clashes took place. The system will become fully operational in December, the military said.
The missiles are being installed in Crimea to protect Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria among other things, it adds. Last November, Russia deployed S-400s there after Turkey downed a Russian Su-24 bomber.
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Russian TV has aired footage of explosives and alleged Ukrainian military intelligence Evgen Panov, whom Moscow says was captured and confessed to plotting attacks.
