Ukraine has declared the start of a two-day, major missile test near the Crimean Peninsula, stirring tensions with Russia, which regards the region as part of its territory.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry made the announcement late on Wednesday, stressing that the tests, launched in the country’s southern Kherson region, to the north of Crimea, are legitimate and in conformity with international law.
Crimea is a flashpoint. In March 2014, the territory, which was under Ukrainian control at the time, held a non-government-sanctioned referendum and voted to join Russia. Kiev and Western countries never recognized Crimea’s separation and its subsequent “annexation” by Russia.
“The exercises will go ahead on December 1-2. They will involve tests of medium-range anti-aircraft missiles and include combat, transport and unmanned aircraft, as well as a division of anti-aircraft missile, radar and communications troops,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.
“Ukraine is a sovereign state. All military exercises and tests are held according to a strict schedule and under international law…as for any threats, no one can interfere with the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ operational plans,” he added.
Another Ukrainian official, Vladimir Kryzhanovsky, who is the head of the southern branch of the Ukrainian military’s press service, separately said on Thursday that, during flight, the missiles would come as close as 30 kilometers to Crimean airspace.
Russia had already warned against the intrusion of missiles into Crimean skies and threatened to take retaliatory military action.
Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of Russia’s Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs, said Kiev risked sparking a major international crisis if it followed through with the drill in “Russian airspace.”
“We have will have to respond militarily. Of course, this would be the least desirable scenario, and all of us must work to prevent it,” Kosachev said, alarmingly.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said that the Russian Defense Ministry had already summoned Ukraine’s military envoy on Saturday, informing him that Moscow would shoot down any missiles and destroy their launchers if Ukrainian missiles violated Crimea’s airspace.
“In the Kremlin, we wouldn’t want to see any actions by the Ukrainian side that breached international law and that might create dangerous conditions for international flights over the territory of Russia and adjacent regions,” Peskov said.
The tests, the first of their kind for Ukraine, come at a time of persisting tensions between Kiev and Moscow over a conflict in eastern Ukraine, a region known as the Donbass.
In April 2014, the government in Kiev launched military operations in Donbass, which is composed of Donetsk and Lugansk regions, to crack down on ethnic Russians in the area who were protesting Ukrainian rule.
The conflict then turned into a full-fledged armed conflict, which has left some 10,000 people dead and over 21,000 others injured, according to the United Nations.
Talks aimed at reaching a viable ceasefire have failed numerous times, most recently in the Belarussian capital on Tuesday.
