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Russia says it has foiled Ukrainian 'terror attack' plot in Crimea Putin raises stakes over alleged Ukrainian terror plot in Crimea
(about 1 hour later)
Russia’s security service has said it had thwarted “terrorist attacks” in Crimea by Ukrainian military intelligence and beaten back an armed assault by Kiev’s forces. Vladimir Putin has said Russia will not ignore an alleged Ukrainian terror plot targeting the Crimean peninsula, raising the stakes over an incident Kiev denies took place.
The FSB said one of its officers was killed in armed clashes while arresting “terrorists” on Saturday night while a Russian soldier was killed in clashes with “sabotage-terrorist” groups sent by the Ukrainian defence ministry on Monday. Russia’s security service said on Wednesday that it had foiled a plot by its Ukrainian counterpart to launch terrorist attacks in Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine two years ago.
Yuriy Tandit, an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s security agency, denied the allegations, telling Interfax-Ukraine news agency that Kiev had no intention of taking back the territory “by force”. The FSB agency said in a statement that one of its officers had been killed during a shootout with a “group of diversionaries” on Saturday night, when they were supposedly discovered just inside Crimea’s border with mainland Ukraine. The FSB said that the group had 20 home-made devices that used a total of 40kg of explosives in their possession.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is monitoring the frontier between mainland Ukraine and Crimea – which Russia annexed in 2014, did not report the incident. Ukraine dismissed the story as fake. According to the RIA Novosti news agency, Putin responded: “Instead of trying to find peaceful solutions, Ukraine has resorted to the practice of terror.”
But it said traffic was halted this week and border guards appeared to be on “heightened alert”. The Russian president also said it made no sense to have a “Normandy four” meeting in the current circumstances. The quartet of leaders from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany have met periodically to discuss the conflict in eastern Ukraine. A meeting of the four was planned at the G20 summit in China next month.
In its statement on Wednesday, the FSB – which controls Russia’s borders – said it had “foiled terrorist attacks on the territory of Crimea prepared by the intelligence directorate of the Ukrainian defence ministry”. The FSB said that following the firefight on Saturday night there had been a further incident on Monday involving “massive firing” from the Ukrainian side of the border and attempts to enter the region by force, during which a Russian soldier died.
It said the aim of the sabotage and terrorist attacks was to destabilise the social and political situation before elections in September in Russia and Crimea.
The security agency said several people had been detained, including a Ukrainian military intelligence officer, and a cache of explosives was discovered in raids on Saturday and Sunday.
“On the night of 8 August 2016 special operations forces from the Ukrainian defence ministry carried out two more attempts to make a breakthrough by sabotage-terrorist groups,” it said.“On the night of 8 August 2016 special operations forces from the Ukrainian defence ministry carried out two more attempts to make a breakthrough by sabotage-terrorist groups,” it said.
The assault included “massive firing from the side of the neighbouring state and armoured vehicles” but was beaten back by the Russian authorities, the statement said. The FSB said it had arrested a man named Evgeny Panov, allegedly a Ukrainian military intelligence operative born in 1977, and said he had made a confession.
Russia seized the Black Sea region from Ukraine in March 2014 after the Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted by pro-EU protests in Kiev. Kiev dismissed all of the claims as Russian provocation.
The move shattered ties between the two ex-Soviet neighbours and resulted in relations between Moscow and the west plummeting to their lowest point since the cold war. “This kind of FSB statement is nothing more than an attempt to justify the relocation and aggressive actions of Russian military units on the temporarily occupied peninsula,” Ukraine’s defence ministry said in a statement.
The FSB said it had stepped up security measures around the peninsula following the alleged incidents. “Russian security services are trying to distract the population of Crimea and the international community from its criminal actions, turning the peninsula into an isolated military base.”
Locals in Crimea had noted a large amount of Russian military hardware on the move in recent days, and the de facto borders between Crimea and Ukraine were closed over the weekend and subjected to increased security checks when they reopened.
The FSB said Kiev’s aim was the “destabilisation of the socio-political situation in the region during preparation for elections”. Russia will hold nationwide parliamentary elections on 18 September, with Crimea taking part for the first time since it annexation two years ago.
Putin’s warning that Russia would not ignore the incident will worry observers. The increased tension in Crimea comes at a time when the simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine appears to be heating up. There are almost daily casualties on the frontline between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed rebel military formations, and little sign of a resolution to the conflict, in which more than 9,000 people have been killed over the past two years.
Igor Plotnitsky, the head of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, was admitted to hospital after an assassination attempt earlier this month. He blamed Ukrainian authorities and the CIA, but other analysts suggest infighting or falling out with his Russian handlers is a more likely cause.
Crimea’s governor, Sergey Aksyonov, who was appointed by Moscow, said attempts to destabilise the peninsula during the summer tourist season would be prevented “in the harshest possible way”, promising that the region was safe for residents and tourists.