That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Friday, August 12. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Take care.
Excerpt:
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN of Russia is again playing with fire. This time, it may be a summer bluff, or it may be a pretext to escalation of war with Ukraine. Either way, it reflects Mr. Putin’s determination to deceive and subvert whenever it suits his goals, at home and abroad, taking advantage of a distracted United States and Europe.
Russia Deploys Advanced S-400 Air-Defense Missile Systems To Crimea
Russia says it has deployed its advanced S-400 air-defense missile systems in the occupied Ukrainian region of Crimea.
The southern military district made the announcement in a statement carried by Russian news agencies on August 12.
The military pledged last month to deploy the system, which Moscow has touted as state-of-the art, on the peninsula.
The S-400 is capable of tracking some 300 targets and engaging three dozen simultaneously.
It has a range of several hundred kilometers.
Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, a move widely rejected by the international community.
The deployment of the S-400 on the Black Sea peninsula comes as tensions between Russia and Ukraine escalated this week after Moscow claimed it thwarted an incursion into Crimea by Ukrainian saboteurs.