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Crimean air defense troops have been put on alert due to Ukrainian plans to conduct missile firing over the Black Sea. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry is not going to refuse from its plans and establishes new ‘danger zones’ over the Black Sea.

Crimean air defense troops have been put into a beefed-up service regime due to Ukrainian plans to conduct missile firing over the Black Sea, the TASS news agency reported, citing unnamed sources within the security agencies of the region.

“Russian air defense forces in Crimea have been put into a beefed-up regime of operating,” the source said, noting that he meant not only ground-based air defense facilities, but also ship-based air-defense systems.

He also stressed that vessels of the Russian Black Sea Fleet are all-sufficient fighting units to repel such threats.

According to the source, the Russian Defense Ministry regards the actions of the Ukrainian side as a kind of PR stunt, but, nevertheless, Russian military perceives it as a real and potential threat.

Earlier, SF reported that Russia is going to shot down Ukrainian missiles and to deliver a retaliation strike against Ukrainian missile launchers, if Kiev conducts missile-firing exercises in the area of Russia’s Crimea.

Meanwhile, official representative of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Andrei Lysenko, said that Ukraine is not going to refuse from its plans to carry out missiles’ firing over the Black Sea in the area of Crimea, scheduled for December 1 and 2.

According to Lysenko, “everything that is planned will be carried out.” “Everything that is related to the threats cannot hurt the plans that [Ukrainian] military will carry out,” the representative of the Ukrainian Defense ministry said. Lysenko also added that Ukraine would hold military exercises “on its national territory” and “no one will point out what to do.”

In addition, Ukraine has established new no-fly zones over the Black Sea, which include airspace above Russian territorial waters to the southwest and the southeast of Crimea, representative of the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya), Sergei Isvolsky, said.

“New ‘danger zones’ have been established in airspace over neutral waters of the Black Sea and a part of the territorial waters of the Russian Federation in the Black Sea to the south-west and south-east of the peninsula of Crimea,” Isvolsky said.

He noted that reasons of the announcement of the new no-fly zones have not been called by Ukraine. At the same time, there were no consultations with Russia on this issue.

According to Isvolsky, these actions violate requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization and are politically engaged and provocative.

He also added that new ‘danger zones’ do not threaten to flights over Crimea.

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