The Ukrainian military and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have reported a sharp increase in fighting in the country's east in recent days.
The uptick in fighting in the Donbas region, where Ukrainian government forces are fighting pro-Russia separatists, coincided with the U.S. election but also with the arrest of three suspected members of an alleged Ukrainian "saboteur group" in Russia-annexed Crimea.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had apprehended three people in the city of Sevastopol on November 9 that it described as "members of a sabotage-terrorist group from the main intelligence directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry."
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry rejected the FSB's claims, calling them a "fabrication."
After similar arrests in August, hostilities in the Donbas also spiked.
That month, Moscow said it thwarted an incursion into the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula by Ukrainian saboteurs and accused Kyiv of plotting "terror" in Crimea.
