MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/. A senior Russian parliamentarian says he does not think Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko believes in a ‘military scenario’ in case the situation worsens in Donbass and around Crimea as his rhetoric may suggest.
Poroshenko’s speaking about possibly declaring a state of emergency or martial law in the country serves purely domestic purposes and will not affect the Minsk process, the chairman of the Federation Council’s foreign affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachev, posted on Facebook on Friday.
During a trip to the western Lvov region, the Ukrainian president said that he did not rule out martial law could be declared and mobilization announced in case the situation in troubled Donbass and around Crimea worsened.
"I am confident that at the back of his mind Poroshenko sees a military scenario with ‘all azimuths’ illusory. Increasingly heated rhetoric serves purely domestic political purposes," the senator wrote on his Facebook page.
He did not rule out, however, that Poroshenko could quite possibly indeed look for ways to declare a state of emergency or martial law to first of all overcome resistance in Rada (parliament) and raise his popularity that has slumped to very low marks," he said.
"I don’t think all these statements affect in any way the Minsk process, as it is blocked by internal resistance in Ukraine," the senator added.
Poroshenko himself "is not strongly interested in implementation of the Minsk agreements, as the myth of ‘countering the Russian aggression’ is backbone for the present Ukraine". Without it, it is far from certain that the present-day dignitaries will find their place under new scenarios," Kosachev said.
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Russia’s Federal Security Service FSB on August said it had detained a group of saboteurs in Crimea and prevented a number of terrorist attacks plotted by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s intelligence department. The FSB said saboteurs were targeting crucial infrastructures. Two Russian military servicemen were killed in the operation to detain terrorists. Criminal cases were opened.
Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the Ukrainian secret services’ attempt at sabotage in Crimea as "silly and criminal". The real aim, he said, was to distract attention from Ukraine’s domestic problems and the authorities, who were robbing their own people. Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has dismissed Moscow’s charges. He argues the detention of saboteurs was a provocation.
The Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with special status on the Crimean Peninsula, where most residents are Russians, refused to recognize the legitimacy of authorities who took power amid riots during the February 2014 coup in Ukraine.
Crimea and Sevastopol adopted declarations of independence on March 11, 2014. They held a referendum on March 16, 2014, in which 96.77% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification treaty on March 18, 2014.
Ukraine, the United States and the European Union refused to recognize Crimea’s independence and its reunification with Russia.