The Russian Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman also drew attention to the announcement of the start of
drills in the Zaporozhye, Kherson and Chernigov regions, and also the training
of reservists.
MOSCOW, December 5.
/TASS/. The Kiev regime is building up its military presence in the Donbass
region, indicated by the information surfacing, Russian Foreign Ministry
Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.
“For the sake of
holding on to power, the current rulers in Kiev, the Kiev regime is ready to do
anything, even going as far as unleashing a new blitzkrieg in the South-East.
Unfortunately, information has started to surface more and more on the
likelihood of the use of force by the Ukrainian military in Donbass. The Kiev
regime is using an information noise screen to try to shift the world’s
attention towards its own provocation in the Kerch Strait, which the regime is
painting as some “Russian aggression” in order to deploy substantial offensive
hardware to the region,” the Russian diplomat said.
"Some days ago,
social networks posted photos of armored units deployed to Mariupol. Besides,
efforts are underway to deploy Ukrainian military personnel to the conflict
zone from assault and paramilitary brigades, which underwent intensive training
in November with the active involvement of US, Canadian and British instructors
at practice ranges in the Zhitomir and Lvov regions. Specialists from private
military companies were spotted along the engagement line and they conducted
training for the personnel of the Ukrainian special forces with the aim of
carrying out offensive operations," the diplomat pointed out.
The Russian Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman also drew the journalists’ attention to the announcement
of the start of military drills in the Zaporozhye, Kherson and Chernigov
regions, and also the training of reservists.
On November 27,
Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, endorsed President Pyotr Poroshenko’s
decree on imposing a 30-day martial law from November 28 in the Vinnitsa,
Lugansk, Nikolayevsk, Odessa, Sumy, Kharkov, Chernigov, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and
Kherson regions, as well as Ukraine’s territorial waters in the Sea of Azov.
Initially, Poroshenko sought to impose martial law for 60 days, but this put
into question holding the March presidential election and sparked a public
outcry.
The pretext for the
decision to declare martial law was an incident in the Kerch Strait on November
25, when three Ukrainian warships, en route from Odessa to Mariupol, illegally
crossed Russia’s state border, entered Russia’s territorial waters and started
performing dangerous maneuvers.
Despite the repeated
warnings and demands to stop, the Ukrainian vessels continued their way,
forcing Russia to use weapons. All three Ukrainian ships were detained in the
Black Sea. Three Ukrainian servicemen were wounded and received medical
assistance. Their lives are currently not under threat. A criminal case has
been launched over the violation of Russia’s state border. Moscow slammed the
incident as a provocation.
Source: ITAR-TASS
05-12-2018
