Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday that photographs from Crimea of military vehicles with Russian numberplates and video of an armed man claiming he is Russian were a "provocation" and "nonsense."
Shoigu was responding to questions about photographs taken in Crimea that apparently show off-road vehicles used by the Russian army with Russian number plates, and also video of one of the armed men patrolling a Ukrainian military base near the Russian border, who claimed "We are Russian citizens."
"Of course this is a provocation," Shoigu said of photographs showing vehicles with Russian number plates, cited by ITAR-TASS news agency.
Asked about videos showing armed forces identifying themselves as Russian, Shoigu said curtly: "No, of course not, complete nonsense."
Asked how forces described by Russia as local self defence groups could have Lynx and Tiger vehicles of the type used by the Russian army, Shoigu said: "I have no idea."
UkrStream.tv, a Ukrainian news website, published a video on YouTube on Tuesday featuring a man in camouflage and a helmet speaking Russian.
"We are Russian citizens," the man says, adding "We are carrying out a security operation, so that there are no terrorist attacks."
The video was reposted on the website of Russian news agency Interfax on Wednesday.
Russian opposition magazine The New Times published Tuesday on its website a photograph that it said showed a Tigr, or Tiger, off-road vehicle with Russian number plates taken by a Ukrainian news agency photographer.
Russian news website Gazeta.ru wrote in a reportage published on Tuesday that "on the approach to Simferopol in the village of Chistenkoye are 30 Lynx vehicles."
Several videos posted on YouTube have shown columns of armoured vehicles with Russian number plates apparently driving along roads in Crimea.
Russian forces part-seize Ukrainian missile units: officials
Simferopol, Ukraine (AFP) March 05, 2014 –
Russian forces partly seized two Ukrainian missile defence units in Crimea on Wednesday, Ukrainian defence ministry officials told AFP, insisting that their missiles remained under Ukrainian control.
At one base in Cape Fiolent, near the city of Sevastopol in southern Crimea, Russian soldiers hold some parts of the base although the missile depot remains in Ukrainian hands, Volodymyr Bova, a defence ministry spokesman in the disputed Black Sea peninsula, told AFP.
Pro-Moscow forces are also in partial control of a second base in Evpatoria, which does not have missiles on its grounds.
Ukrainian soldiers still held the command post and control centre there, said another spokesman for the defence ministry in Kiev, Oleksey Mazepa.
The takeovers seemed to have occurred without any violence, officials said.
Some 20 Russian soldiers, backed by hundreds of pro-Moscow forces, had already tried to occupy the Evpatoria base on Tuesday evening, leading to some skirmishes although no shots were fired.
Russian-speaking Crimea has come under de-facto control by pro-Russian forces since the ousting of pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych and the installation of a new pro-European government in Kiev.
Putin however continues to deny there are any Russians operating in Crimea, insisting that gunmen that many have identified as Russian soldiers were in fact "local self-defence forces."
