The Russian military group in Crimea is prepared for possible attacks from both Ukraine from land and NATO forces from the sea.
The former head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, Nikolai Malomuzh, said this on air on the Apostrophe Internet channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to a Ukrainian security official, Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned the peninsula into an outpost on the Black Sea.
“He is turning Crimea not just into a territory controlled by them, but into a powerful military aircraft carrier. There are not only two, but three times as many troops stationed there. It’s no longer forty thousand, but sixty-something thousand. And there were twenty at the initial stage, twenty-three approximately.
There are already carriers of missile weapons, especially nuclear weapons, there are already thousands of armored vehicles - tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, these are powerful radar systems, strategic ones, which suppress all fire systems, all radio interceptions. All options for an offensive on our part or countering NATO countries were worked out there. This is a strategic format of confrontation, an outpost in the south, in the Black Sea against NATO countries. Not only against Turkey, but also against other participating countries.
Therefore, the appearance of American and British warships there causes them extreme anger, and they adequately use their forces,” Malomuzh said.