Ukraine puts troops along Crimean border on combat alert

Poroshenko had on Wednesday dismissed Moscow’s claims as “senseless and cynical”.

The worst diplomatic standoff between the two countries since a truce signed past year raised alarm in foreign capitals and reverberated across markets.

Ukraine and Russian Federation have been locked in a bitter dispute since the ouster of pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych in early 2014, with peace talks getting nowhere despite several ceasefires.

Both envoys expressed hope that tensions would not escalate further.

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, right, and Oleksandr Turchynov, Head of Ukraine’s Defence and Security Council, chair the Council extraordinary session in Kiev, Ukraine. Russia’s FSB spy agency said on Wednesday that it had foiled a series of attacks by armed Ukrainians on the peninsula.

“We again call on our partners to bear the greatest influence on the authorities in Kiev to prevent them from taking unsafe steps that might have the most negative consequences”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “Playing with fire is no good”. “The situation is highly risky not only for Ukraine’s security, but for the security of the whole region”.

“There is chaos in Kiev, they don’t know what to do about Donetsk”, Churkin said.

The assault included “massive firing from the side of the neighboring state and armored vehicles” but was beaten back by the Russian authorities, the statement said. “In fact, our security services prevented an incursion into the territory by a sabotage-reconnaissance group from Ukraine’s defense ministry”, Putin said.

The Russian leader has exhibited a tendency to use instability in the region as leverage in negotiations.

Moscow has also warned Kiev that the death of Russian military would not remain without consequences.

At a meeting on Thursday of Poroshenko’s top intelligence and security officials, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Valeriy Kondratyuk briefed the group that Ukrainian agents observed a shootout “between servicemen from Russia’s armed forces and the border service of Russia’s FSB”.

Military and political analysts were perplexed by the timing of the flareup as it followed efforts by Putin to fix ties with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that frayed after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter on the Syrian border past year. The ensuing conflict in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 9,500, and fighting there between Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists has continued despite a 2015 cease-fire.

It could also help rally Russians ahead of the parliamentary vote, in which the main pro-Kremlin United Russia Party might struggle to win as many votes as usual because of an economic slump caused by low oil prices as well as the sanctions.

“We call on Russian Federation to reverse its illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea”. US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt said Washington had so far seen nothing to corroborate Russia’s version. “That is a matter for real concern”.

“Now is the time to reduce the tensions, reduce the rhetoric and get back to talk”, Trudeau noted, referring to Russian Federation as where accusations have been lobbed, and that it is time to take a step back.

In 1992 following the collapse of the communist regime Crimea declared independence but made a decision to remain part of Ukraine, though with its own parliament and government based in Simferopol.