Ukraine isn’t ruling out a full-scale Russian invasion and may institute a military draft if the situation with its neighbor worsens, President Petro Poroshenko said, after three soldiers were killed in the worst spate of shelling by pro-Moscow separatists in a year.
The confrontation between Ukrainian forces and the rebels in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region has worsened, Poroshenko said Thursday in the western city of Brody. His comments came a week after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the government in Kiev of engaging in “terror” tactics in Crimea, which Ukraine’s fellow former Soviet republic annexed in 2014. He vowed to respond with “serious measures.”
“The probability of escalation and conflict remains very significant,” Poroshenko said in a televised speech. “We don’t rule out full-scale Russian invasion.”
The Ukrainian government, which says Russia is funneling troops, cash and weapons to the separatists, has rejected Putin’s accusations over Crimea and said its neighbor may use them as a pretext to mass more troops in the disputed Black Sea peninsula. Ukraine has enough forces along its eastern front line and near the border with the territory to resist a possible offensive, military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said Thursday.
Rebels fired more than 800 artillery and mortar rounds at government positions during the previous 24 hours, the most since last August, Motuzyanyk said. He added that Ukrainian positions along the front line stretching from near the rebel-held city of Luhansk to the government-controlled port Mariupol on the Azov Sea came under attack. July was the deadliest month since last August in the conflict, which the United Nations estimates has killed at least 9,500 people since 2014.
Ukraine isn’t ruling out a full-scale Russian invasion and may institute a military draft if the situation with its neighbor worsens, President Petro Poroshenko said, after three soldiers were killed in the worst spate of shelling by pro-Moscow separatists in a year.
The confrontation between Ukrainian forces and the rebels in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region has worsened, Poroshenko said in the western city of Brody on Thursday. His comments come a week after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the government in Kiev of engaging in “terror” tactics in Crimea, which Ukraine’s fellow former Soviet republic annexed in 2014. Putin vowed to respond with “serious measures.”
“The probability of escalation and conflict remains very significant,” Poroshenko said in a televised speech. “We don’t rule out full-scale Russian invasion.”
The Ukrainian government, which says Russia is funneling troops, cash and weapons to the separatists, has rejected Putin’s accusations over Crimea and said its neighbor may use them as a pretext to mass more troops in the disputed Black Sea peninsula. Ukraine has enough forces along its eastern front line and near the border with the territory to resist a possible offensive, military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said Thursday.
Rebels fired more than 800 artillery and mortar rounds at government positions during the past 24 hours, the most since last August, Motuzyanyk said. He added that Ukrainian positions along the front line stretching from near the rebel-held city of Luhansk to the government-controlled port Mariupol on the Azov Sea came under attack. July was the deadliest month since last August in the conflict, which the United Nations estimates has killed at least 9,500 people since 2014.
Putin may travel to Crimea on Friday to talk with local officials and visit a summer camp for children, Russian media group RBC reported on its website on Tuesday, citing three people it didn’t identify.
