Putin orders war games off Crimea after accusing Ukraine of trying to stir up conflict
Fears grow that Russia is planning to ramp up fighting with Kiev
RUSSIA’S President Putin has ordered massive war games off Crimea.
The shock move comes after Putin accused war-ravaged Ukraine of trying to provoke a conflict over Crimea - which Moscow illegally seized in 2014.
The Kremlin claimed saboteurs tried to launch a terror attack inside Crimea – accusations which have been heavily denied.
Ukraine's forces have in turn been put on combat alert on the Crimean border.
The Kremlin said Putin met military chiefs yesterday over “counter-terror measures along the land border, offshore and in Crimean air space”.
In response, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he had ordered all Ukrainian units near Crimea and in eastern Ukraine onto the highest state of combat readiness.
Oleh Slobodyan, a spokesman for the Ukrainian border guards, said Russia had massed troops on Ukraine's border with Crimea in recent days.
He said: “These troops are coming with more modern equipment and there are air assault units.”
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.
Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst in Ukraine, said: “Putin will scare the West with the prospect of full-scale conflict with Ukraine.
“He is trying to increase pressure on Kiev to force Ukraine to accept a Russian plan to resolve the conflict in the east.
"Putin won't go all out for a big war.
"But there might be pinpoint military operations against radicals whose bases are located near the border with Crimea.”
Fears are growing that Russia is planning to once more ramp up fighting between Kiev and pro-Russian rebels.
The EU and US have imposed strict economic sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis, but Putin is carrying on regardless.