Ukrainian Foreign Ministry issues temporary recommendation to refrain from visiting Crimea
KYIV. Aug 11 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has urged Ukrainian and foreign citizens to refrain from traveling to Crimea for a while, motivating it by the recent "substantial escalation" on the peninsula.
Multiple instances of the Ukrainians being held for no reason and mistreated by Russian law enforcement agencies have become the norm, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday evening.
On August 10 Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had prevented a series of terror attacks in Crimea, plotted by the Ukrainian intelligence. It was reported that Russian security services, supported by forces from other agencies, prevented a breakthrough into Crimea by sabotage and terrorist groups from Ukrainian territory.
The FSB also said that it held one of the organizers, "Panov, Yevhen Oleksandrovych, born 1977, a resident of Zaporizhia region, an employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry." He is making a confession.
Ukraine's Defense Ministry, its Main Intelligence Directorate, and National Security and Defense Council dismissed the reports about Ukrainian saboteurs. The Defense Ministry said the Russian accusations that the peninsula had been shelled from mainland Ukraine were just as baseless.
Panov's brother Ihor Kotelyanets thinks Yevhen was kidnapped from the Zaporizhia region and smuggled into Crimea.
