LATEST UPDATE:
Ukrainian officer killed in Crimea
(MOSCOW, Russia)
A Ukrainian military officer was shot and killed late Sunday night in an altercation with Russian soldiers near an air base in Crimea, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Monday. It was a rare instance of deadly violence as Ukrainian forces continue their withdrawal from the peninsula following its annexation by Russia.
The Ukrainian officer, Maj. Stanislav Karchevskiy, was killed in a military dormitory where he lived with his wife and two children, next to the Novofedorivka air base in western Crimea, said the spokesman, Vladislav Seleznev.
Mr. Seleznev said that the altercation involved several Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and that there were no other injuries. He said a Russian soldier armed with an automatic weapon entered the dormitory and shot Major Karchevskiy, who was unarmed.
Ukraine’s provisional government in Kiev has ordered its forces to withdraw from Crimea, but an unknown number of military personnel remain on the peninsula as part of the transition, in which some military equipment is being returned to mainland Ukraine.
Mr. Seleznev said that a second Ukrainian officer, Capt. Artem Yarmolenko, was detained by Russian forces for questioning and possibly taken to Sevastopol, where the Russian military has its headquarters in Crimea.
The shooting at Novofedorivka further heightened tensions as the government in Kiev and its Western supporters, including the United States, remain anxious over the possibility of a Russian military incursion into eastern Ukraine, where there has been continuing public unrest.
On Sunday, in what appeared to be coordinated efforts, groups of pro-Russian demonstrators seized government buildings in several large cities in eastern Ukraine, including Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk. Similar actions have occurred previously in the largely Russian-speaking region, where some residents are demanding to follow Crimea in seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia.
In Kiev on Monday morning, the acting prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, accused Russia of stirring unrest to create an excuse to invade Ukraine.
He said Russia was carrying out a plan “to destabilize the situation, a plan to ensure that foreign troops could cross the border and capture the territory of the country.” He added, “We will not allow this.”
Speaking at the start of a government meeting, Mr. Yatsenyuk said, “There is a script being written in the Russian Federation, for which there is only one purpose: the dismemberment and destruction of Ukraine and the transformation of Ukraine into the territory of slavery under the dictates of Russia.”
Thanks for Reading The LATEST UPDATE:
Ukrainian officer killed in Crimea
SHARE WITH FRIENDS
