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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Ukraine PM Says Russia Violations 'War Provocation' as Rebels Accuse Detained OSCE Team of Being 'NATO Spies' |
| 2014-04-27 |
| [An Nahar] Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Saturday that Russian military aircraft had crossed the country's airspace seven times "to provoke Ukraine to start a war." "Russian military aircraft today overnight crossed and violated Ukrainian airspace seven times. The only reason is to provoke Ukraine to start a war," he told journalists at a briefing in Rome, following a meeting with Pope Francis and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... shortly after the Ukraine PM's statement, Russia's defense ministry denied claims by the Pentagon and Yatsenyuk that its planes had repeatedly violated Ukrainian airspace in recent days. "Russia's airspace monitoring systems have not registered any violations of air borders of the states adjacent to Russia, including Ukraine," the defense ministry said in a statement carried by the state ITAR TASS news agency. The Pentagon had said Russian warplanes had violated Ukraine's airspace several times on Thursday. The Ukrainian PM also said the seizure of 13 international OSCE observers by pro-Kremlin rebels who accuse them of being "NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... spies" was "another proof and evidence that these so-called peaceful protesters with Russian ideas are terrorists." Russia pledged Saturday to help free the observers, who were sent to Ukraine to monitor an April 17 accord signed in Geneva between Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... that was meant to de-escalate the dangerous crisis in the ex-Soviet republic. But pro-Russian rebels holding the OSCE observers accused them of being "NATO spies" and vowed to continue detaining them. "Yesterday, we tossed in the slammer ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... some NATO spies... they will be exchanged for our own prisoners. I don't see any other way they will be freed," Denis Pushilin, the head of the turbans' self-declared Donetsk Republic, told news hounds. Pushilin was speaking in front of the SBU security services building in rebel-held Slavyansk, where the OSCE team was being held. The town's self-styled mayor, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, also told Russian TV news crews that the OSCE members were being considered "intelligence officers of NATO country members". "Military personnel from Denmark, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria I think and -- from somewhere else, I can't immediately recall -- have been detained," he said in broadcasts seen in Moscow. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 "Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Saturday that Russian military aircraft had crossed the country's airspace seven times "to provoke Ukraine to start a war.'" Seriously?! |
| Posted by: Uncle Phester 2014-04-27 20:31 |