Post date: Mar 01, 2014 11:25:32 PM
Ukraine says it has put its armed forces on full combat alert and warns Russia that any military intervention in the country would lead to war.
KIEV, UKRAINE (MARCH 1, 2014) (RADA TV) - Ukraine put its armed forces on full combat alert on Saturday (March 1) and warned Russia that any military intervention in the country would lead to war.
After a more than three-hour meeting with security and defence chiefs, Acting President Oleksander Turchinov said there was no justification for what he called Russian aggression against his country."There are no grounds for this act of aggression. All statements by the Russian leadership that Russian speaking citizens of Ukraine or Russian citizens are under the threat have been made up and are untrue. The Ukrainian state protects all citizens of Ukraine no matter which region they live in, which language they speak, which church they attend. I gave an order, taking into consideration potential aggression, to put Ukrainian armed forces on full alert," Turchinov said.
Standing beside Turchinov, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said he had urgedRussia to return its troops to base in the Crimea region during a phone call with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and called for talks.
"Military intervention would be the beginning of war and the end of any relations between Ukraine and Russia," Yatseniuk told reporters.