Russian aircraft ‘violated Ukraine airspace’
US defence department says Russian warplanes entered Ukraine’s airspace on several occasions in the past 24 hours.
Russian warplanes violated Ukraine’s airspace several times in the past 24 hours, a Pentagon spokesman has said, in the latest sign of a mounting confrontation between Moscow and Kiev.
Pentagon spokesperson Colonel Steven Warren confirmed the breach on Friday, but did not provide more details, including where the incidents occured or what kind of Russian planes were involved.
He urged Russia to take “immediate steps to de-escalate the situation,” AFP news agency reported.
With tensions soaring, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel had tried to arrange a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, to discuss the crisis, but Moscow has yet to respond to the request, Warren said.
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, has spoken to his military counterpart in Moscow, Warren said.
After Ukraine announced military operations to counter pro-Kremlin rebels, Russia ordered its troops massed on the border to launch new exercises.
‘Observers seized’
The remarks from the Pentagon came hours after armed separatists in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk reportedly seized a bus carrying international observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The separatist leader in Slovyansk told reporters a problem had arisen when the observers tried to pass a separatist checkpoint, and that there was an Ukrainian “spy” among the group. He did not say where they were.
The interior ministry in Kiev said the group, which included eight OSCE representatives and five members of the Ukrainian armed forces, was being held in the building of the state security agency (SBU) in the city which has been occupied by pro-Russian separatists.
“Negotiations are going on for their release,” a ministry statement said.
Slovyansk, a city of around 130,000, has been for two weeks under the control of separatists who, like similar groups elsewhere in eastern Ukraine, oppose the central government in Kiev after the overthrow of a Kremlin-backed president.
Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, the de facto mayor of Slovyansk, told reporters he believed a problem had arisen when the OSCE observers arrived at a checkpoint on the edge of the city manned by separatist fighters, Reuters news agency reported.
“What the situation was I do not know,” he said. “It was reported to me that among them (the OSCE group) was an employee of Kiev’s secret military staff.”
“People who come here as observers bringing with them a real spy: it’s not appropriate.”
The Vienna headquarters of the OSCE did not immediately confirm the information, but did say that all the observers in its main mission on the ground in Ukraine were accounted for, AFP news agency reported.
‘Third world war’
The alleged abduction of the monitors happened amid heightened tensions in Ukraine with Kiev accusing Moscow of trying to trigger a third world war even as its forces pushed to regain territory in the country’s east from the pro-Russian separatists.
“The world hasn’t forgotten the Second World War and Russia wants to start a third world war,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said.
“Russia’s support for the terrorists in Ukraine constitutes an international crime and we call on the international community to unite against the Russian aggression,” Yatsenyuk added.