A Hello to Arms: Is There a Black Market for Guns in Ukraine?

The FSB statement after which seven Ukrainians were arrested on suspicion of 'preparing a terrorist attack' – as reported by "RIA Novosti" – has quite a few things that don’t add up. Hromadske analyzed it and came up with nine questions about the official FSB claim of Ukrainian saboteurs in occupied Crimea.

1. What’s the point of sending equipped, camouflaged groups to a mined administrative boundary controlled by Russian soldiers, when any Ukrainian could enter the peninsula legally as a civilian without drawing attention?

2. What happened after the first firefight between FSB and the so-called Ukrainian saboteur group, when according to the FSB's information, one of their workers had been killed? Did they let the saboteurs go or did the FSB withdraw?

3. Why would modern saboteurs carry a Ukrainian package of pepper among explosive and shells? (Or that is not the only Ukrainian trove in the “hideout”?)

4. Why did the FSB announcements describe armored men in Russian camouflage with RF epaulets when a fit man was arrested and Panov had excess weight and was wearing civil clothes?

5. According to the FSB, two more groups tried to cross the Syvash lake under cover of massive artillery fire and armored vehicles. Then why did thousands of people that were waiting near the closed entry and exit checkpoints at the administrative boundary not hear the alleged massive firefight?

6. The FSB says that Ukrainian Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) drove to Syvash and came closer to support the so-called saboteur group. Then why did Russian troopers that are patrolling this area not shoot them down, stop them, or wound them? Moreover, would APCs be able to get out of Syvash when the silt layer there is at a depth of a few meters?

7. Why was the FSB detention video filmed specifically so that the location of the video could not be determined?

8. Why was the Internet in northern Crimea switched off on exactly that day? At first, they reported about repairing it and then - to catch saboteurs.

9. Who got killed? Why don't they name the killed Russian FSB and Ministry of Defense officers and also the names of the saboteurs?

Vladimir Putin, commenting on the FSB statement, said that Ukraine is attempting to 'practice terror,' and that "under these conditions, meeting in the Normandy format, moreover in China, would be senseless."

Petro Poroshenko said in a statement that "Russian accusations that Ukraine launched terror attacks in the occupied Crimea are equally cynical and insane as are claims that there are no Russian troops in eastern Ukraine."

The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine said that FSB’s statement is 'an attempt to justify the redeployment of the Russian military to the territory of annexed Crimea.'

One of those detained by the FSB is Evgeny Panov of Energodar.