Crimea air defense forces, Black Sea Fleet ships stay on alert due to Ukraine's announced missile firing exercises
SIMFEROPOL. Dec 2 (Interfax) - The air defense forces in Crimea are remaining on alert on Friday due to Ukraine's missile drills, and Russian Black Sea Fleet ships remain in position off the Crimean peninsula's western coast, a high-ranking official with Crimea's security services told Interfax on condition of anonymity.
"All of the measures taken yesterday remain in effect. We are ready to timely respond should any threats occur," he said.
On Thursday, Ukraine conducted short-range missile drills at a ground firing range in the southern Kherson region, which borders Crimea, he said. Such missile launches do not pose any threat to Crimea if they proceed as planned.
"Incidents when missiles flew in the wrong direction occurred several times during exercises in Ukraine, including the tragic incident when a missile hit a passenger airplane in 2001. Bearing all this in mind, we stay vigilant from a military standpoint. Everything may happen - operators' errors, malfunction of obsolete hardware," the source said.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces conducted 16 missile launches using an S-300 system from a ground firing range on December 1, he said. The missiles flew a short distance and exploded over land within the line-of-sight distance from the launch site. The airspace over the Black Sea was not used during the exercises.
"The large number of similar short-range launches makes it possible to presume that the firing exercises became a specific way of disposing of out-dated ammunition," the source said.
The source said earlier that the missile drills with such parameters did not require the closure to flights of the airspace over the Black Sea.
Ukraine launched two-day missile drills in its southern Kherson region on Thursday. Passenger airplanes of foreign air carriers started to fly around the airspace over the Black Sea west of Crimea on Thursday morning. However, Simferopol airport is operating as usual. No flights have been cancelled, but there have been several delays because of bad weather. Air traffic with Crimea has not been disrupted due to the Ukrainian Armed Forces' missile drills.
