Ukraine puts armed forces on full combat alert amid growing Russian tensions
Moscow shows no sign of releasing ships and crews seized on Sunday in a stand-off that is more combustible now than at any time in the past four years
Russia on Monday ignored western calls to release three Ukrainian naval ships it fired on and captured near Crimea at the weekend and accused Kiev of plotting with its western allies to provoke a conflict. Kiev in turn accused Russia of military aggression and put its armed forces on full combat alert, saying it reserved the right to defend itself. Ukrainian legislators were due to decide whether to introduce martial law for two months later on Monday, a move President Petro Poroshenko has backed. With relations still raw after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its backing for a pro-Moscow insurgency in eastern Ukraine, the crisis risks pushing the two countries towards a wider conflict and there were early signs Kiev was renewing western calls for more sanctions on Moscow. The crisis erupted when border patrol boats belonging to Russia’s FSB security service seized two small Ukrainian armoured artillery vessels and a tug boat after opening fire on them and woundin...
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