Russia-Ukraine tensions still high along Crimean border
Saber-rattling for more than a week between Russia and Ukraine led to a military buildup on the border that threatened to escalate to full-scale war. The situation escalated more than a week ago, when Moscow accused Ukraine of sending sabotage teams armed with explosives into the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine and formally annexed in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin added fuel to the fire by describing those alleged sabotage missions as terror attacks that killed two Russians, a soldier and a security officer. Kiev dismissed these allegations as “fantasies” designed to provoke bloodshed. On Thursday, the Kremlin ordered its Black Sea fleet to hold war games. Alarmed, Ukraine put all its troops along the border with Crimea and the eastern border zone facing Russia on the highest level of readiness.