SIMFEREOPOL, March 19. /ITAR-TASS/. A shooting incident in Simferopol on Tuesday, which claimed the lives of two people, was a provocation, Russian Black Sea Fleet Commander Alexander Vitko said Wednesday.
"The sniper did his job there like on the Maidan (in Kiev)," KrymInform news agency quoted him as saying.
Admiral Vitko called attention to the warning about forthcoming provocations that the staff of the Black Sea Fleet issued March 14. "What happened in Simferopol yesterday was beyond any doubt a provocation and its style suggests that the sniper there acted in the same manner as the one on the Maidan," he said.
"Two people died as a result," Admiral Vitko said.
"Nonetheless, the hotheads in the incumbent Ukrainian leadership said something about permission to shoot," he said. "I'd like to warn everyone in this connection and especially the men and officers of the Ukrainian Naval Forces, God forbid you to make a single shot, even from a slingshot. Matches are not toys, and I'd like to ask everyone to understand it in the very literal sense."
An unidentified sniper opened gunfire in the city in the night hours of Tuesday, March 18, killing a member of the Crimean volunteer guard and a Ukrainian army serviceman. Crimean Interior Ministry officials said fire had been opened from the same positionin both cases.
A police report said the Volunteer Guard received a report on the presence of a group of armed people in a partly unpopulated building on Kubanskaya Street. Fire was opened at them from a sniping rifle when they were verifying the information.