Ukraine’s president has warned of the threat of ‘full-scale war’ with Russia amid escalating tensions between the ex-Soviet neighbours.
Petro Poroshenko said ‘I don’t want anyone to think this is fun and games’ as he addressed the crisis which unfolded when Russian forces seized three Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea.
He also warned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had sharply increased its military presence on their shared border.
It comes as Moscow revealed a cache of weapons it claimed were seized from the Ukrainian warships detained off the Crimean coast on Sunday.
Ukraine’s president has warned of the threat of ‘full-scale war’ with Russia amid escalating tensions between the ex-Soviet neighbours. Russia says these weapons were seized from Ukrainian ships off Crimea on Sunday
Moscow revealed a cache of weapons it claimed were seized from the Ukrainian warships detained off the Crimean coast on Sunday
Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko said ‘I don’t want anyone to think this is fun and games’ as he addressed the crisis which unfolded when Russian forces seized three Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea
Yesterday, a Crimean court ordered three of the captured men to be held in custody for the next two months on accusations of crossing into Russian territory illegally
The FSB security service claims three Ukrainian warships it detained were staging a provocation close to Crimea which Putin annexed in 2014.
The naval ships were equipped with four 30mm guns, four AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers and four PKT machineguns, said the counterintelligence agency.
It said two 12.7mm DShK machineguns, 13 AK-47 submachine guns, four handguns, a rubber-bullet gun, a flare gun and more than 765 high-explosive fragmentation shells of 30mm caliber were found onboard. They also said they discovered 1,975 charges for use by VOG-17 grenade launchers and 495 other charges plus 40 RG-42 hand grenades, and 20 RGD grenades.
There were other munitions and 15 ‘knife bayonets’.
Each vessel had two artillery systems during the incident, said the FSB .
‘The Ukrainian navy ships were put on combat alert, with covers removed from the artillery systems and barrels being raised to an angle of 45 degrees and pointed at the Russian ships and boats,’ said a security service source.
Russia says the captured Ukrainian naval ships were equipped with four 30mm guns, four AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers and four PKT machineguns
The FSB security service claims three Ukrainian warships it detained were staging a provocation close to Crimea which Putin annexed in 2014. It said these weapons were found on board
A picture has emerged apparently showing a cannon hole in one of the Ukrainian ships targeted by a Russian coastguard vessel in the Black Sea on Sunday
A 2003 treaty designated the Kerch Strait and Sea of Azov (shown) as shared territorial waters, but Russia has been asserting greater control over the passage since 2015
‘The Russia side warned the Ukrainian ships that a threat of the use of weapons in the Russian territorial waters will be considered as violation of norms of international law and Russia’s legislation.’
Russia claims it was forced to use weapons to stop a Ukrainian ‘provocation’ in the flashpoint Kerch Strait.
At least three Ukrainian servicemen were wounded.
Images of one of the Ukrainian vessels, the Berdyansk, shows clear signs of damage from the weekend conflict.
The other detained warships were the Nikopol and the Yany Kapu.
Russia has released filmed ‘confessions’ of three Ukrainian sailors captured after their ships were fired on by Vladimir Putin’s forces in the Black Sea
The servicemen appear to read from scripts in the FSB secret service footage and admit straying in to Russian waters despite repeated warnings to leave
Amid heightened tensions, Moscow today accused the US – which has given its backing to Ukraine – of deploying a naval Boeing P-8 Poseidon close to Crimean airspace in defiance of Russian warnings to desist such flights.
The American anti-submarine patrol aircraft with tail number168848 spotted overflying the Black Sea is designed to detect and destroy enemy submarines in areas of patrol, reconnaissance, participation in anti-ship and rescue operations.
‘The Russian Defence Ministry has repeatedly called on Washington to abandon such operations, but the Pentagon has refused,’ reported state-funded news agency Sputnik.
It reportedly flew 19 miles from the Crimean coastline.
Poroshenko claimed that his country’s existence as an independent state hangs in the balance.
‘I don’t want anyone to think this is fun and games. Ukraine is under threat of full-scale war with Russia,’ he said in an interview with national television.
Russian units deployed along the border between the two countries have ‘grown dramatically’ while the number of Russian tanks tripled, he alleged.
Donald Trump has threatened to cancel a scheduled meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Argentina this week.
Three of those hurt in the conflict have been named as Andrey Artyomenko (left), 24, Andrey Eyder (right), 18, and Vasily Soroka, 27
Ukrainian ships are detained in Kerch Strait on November 25, 2018 in this still image from video released by Russian Federal Security Service
Ukrainian ships detained in Kerch Strait on Sunday are docked in this still image from video released by Russian Federal Security
Vladimir Putin (pictured) says he is ‘seriously concerned’ about Ukraine’s martial law decision after Russian forces captured three of Kiev’s ships
‘I don’t like that aggression,’ he told the Washington Post.
A court in Russian-controlled Crimea ordered 15 of the Ukrainian sailors to be detained for two months pending a possible trial.
Filmed confessions showed some of the 24 sailors admitting to being part of a pre-planned provocation.
But some Western nations have urged new sanctions against Russia over the incident. Kiev has demanded the release of the sailors.
The simmering conflict between the two ex-Soviet states has seen more than 10,000 killed since 2014.
Putin on Tuesday warned Ukraine against any ‘reckless acts’ after Kiev declared martial law in response to Moscow’s seizure of the navy vessels.