While some 7,500 Russian soldiers remain on the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, Kremlin-backed separatists have been expanding their activities to western and central part of the country, Ukraine’s security service (SBU) said on Nov. 26.
“The geography of crimes and sabotage has expanded significantly. It now includes not only east but also west,” Markian Lubkivsky, an adviser to SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said at the briefing.
The SBU has so far prevented the attempts to destabilize the situation in Poltava, Kherson, Vinnytsia and Lviv oblasts and create so called self-proclaimed people’s republics in the cities of Odesa, Kharkiv, Kyiv and in Zakarpattia Oblast, Olena Hiklianska, SBU spokeswoman said.
The most recent case involved a group detained by SBU which was planning creation of a so-called people’s republic “Pidkarpatska Rus” in Zakarpattia oblast at the order of Russian intelligence service. Their scenario implied forceful takeover of local governments, military bases and other strategic objects in the region.
More than a 1,000 people, including Russian and Ukrainian citizens have been detained by SBU for suspected or direct involvement in terrorist and separatist activities on the territory of Ukraine, since anti-terrorist operation started in April, according to Hiklianska.
Right now the SBU has been watching Kharkiv, where the explosion near military base was reported at night on Nov.25, closely, Lubkivsky said. “We can’t say that there is a threat (of Russian invasion there). Kharkiv is actually now used as a base to destabilize the situation.”
Lubkivsky also warned foreign journalists from taking offers to cross Ukrainian border at the areas which are not controlled by Ukrainian forces.
“Terrorists plan to use human and technical resources of leading foreign media to instigate anti-Ukrainian moods on the territories which are temporarily controlled by insurgents,” he said. “Journalists are invited and brought to the bases of Ukrainian servicemen and then those bases are attacked. Terrorists are interested in victims among foreign media.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected]
