Crimea - The African Mirror

Dec

2023

Russia’s FSB says it cracks Ukrainian network planning assassinations in Crimea

RUSSIA'S Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said that it had cracked a network of Ukrainian agents in Crimea who were involved in attempts to assassinate pro-Russian figures. It said the targets included the Moscow-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, and a former pro-Russian member of the Ukrainian parliament, Oleg Tsaryov. Tsaryov survived despite being shot twice in an attack in October in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. A source in Ukraine's SBU intelligence agency told Reuters at the time that the shooting was an SBU operation. The FSB said the Ukrainian network…

May

2023

By CARIEN DU PLESSIS

African leaders seek to persuade Russia, Ukraine to cease hostilities

NEWS

SIX African leaders propose that Ukraine accept opening peace talks with Russia even as Russian troops remain on its soil, South Africa's presidency said, as South African officials prepare to visit both countries to sell the idea. Ukraine has said Russian troops must withdraw from its territory before talks start, while Moscow wants Kyiv to recognise Russian sovereignty over Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as a precondition for negotiations. Russian forces carried out a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. "First is the cessation of hostilities. Second is a framework for lasting peace," South African Presidency Spokesman Vincent…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

‘It was heartbreaking’: Ukraine children back home after alleged deportation

WORLD

ANNA DABROWSKA MORE than 30 children were reunited with their families in Ukraine this weekend after a long operation to bring them back home from Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea, where they had been taken from areas occupied by Russian forces during the war. Mothers hugged sons and daughters as they crossed the border from Belarus into Ukraine on Friday after a complex rescue mission involving travel across four countries. Dasha Rakk, a 13-year-old girl, said she and her twin sister had agreed to leave the Russian-occupied city of Kherson last year because of the war and go to a holiday…

Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

Russia’s Medvedev: Attack on Crimea will ignite ‘Judgement Day’ response

WORLD

THE refusal of Ukraine and Western powers to recognise Moscow's control of Crimea poses a "systemic threat" for Russia and any outside attack on the region will prompt a "Judgment Day" response, former President Dmitry Medvedev said. Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 after a pro-Moscow president in Kyiv was toppled amid mass street protests. Moscow then also backed pro-Russian armed separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. In the event of an attack on Crimea, Medvedev was quoted by TASS news agency as saying, "Judgment Day will come very fast and hard.…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Kremlin says ‘provocations’ like UK warship episode demand tough response

WORLD

A British warship's entry into what Moscow considers Russian territorial waters near Crimea last month is the kind of provocation that demands a tough response, the Kremlin has warned. President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia, which fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of the warship to chase it out of Black Sea waters off the coast of Crimea, could have sunk the warship. Moscow challenged the right of HMS Defender to pass through waters near Crimea, something London said it had every right to do. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 but most of…