Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he had ordered all Ukrainian units near Crimea and in eastern Ukraine onto the highest state of combat readiness. He was seeking to urgently speak to Putin, the leaders of France and Germany, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and European Council President Donald Tusk.
/Reuters/
Vladimir Putin summoned his security council and the Russian Navy announced war games in the Black Sea, a day after the Russian president accused Ukraine of trying to provoke a conflict over Crimea, which Moscow seized and annexed in 2014.
The Russian leader met his top military and intelligence service brass on Thursday and reviewed "scenarios for counter-terrorism security measures along the land border, offshore and in Crimean air space," the Kremlin said.
Russia's Kommersant newspaper on Thursday cited unnamed security sources as saying a group of men Russia had arrested for planning attacks had confessed to seeking to destroy Crimea's tourist industry by bombing resorts.
The sources told Kommersant two of seven saboteurs in one group had been killed and five captured. Most were Crimea residents and some had Russian passports, they said.
In Ukraine, the brother of one of the detained men said he thought his brother had been kidnapped as part of "a big game."
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