Crimean Tatar Activist To Be Forced Into Psychiatric Clinic For Tests
A court in Russia-annexed Crimea has ruled that a noted Crimean Tatar activist, Ilmi Umerov, must be placed in a psychiatric clinic for examination.
The Kyiv District Court in Simferopol on August 11 approved the motion by investigators. Umerov's lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, said that the court's ruling will be appealed.
Umerov, 59, former deputy chairman of Crimean Tatars' self-governing body -- the Mejlis -- was charged with separatism in May after he made public statements against the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea by Russia.
Umerov was allowed to stay home during investigations into his case.
The Moscow-based Memorial human rights center has called the case against Umerov "illegal and politically motivated."
The majority of Crimea's indigenous people, Crimean Tatars, opposed the peninsula’s annexation by Moscow in March 2014.
Based on reporting by UNIAN and Interfax
Poroshenko Puts Troops In Eastern Ukraine On Highest Alert
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says he has instructed all military units near Russian-occupied Crimea and in the easterly Donbas region to be at the highest level of combat readiness, following Russian allegations of a Ukrainian incursion into Crimea.
Also on August 11, the spokesman for Ukraine's General Staff told Reuters that Ukraine had been holding scheduled military exercises in southern Ukraine since August 10.
The statements come as Kyiv says Russia has amassed more troops in recent days equipped with more modern equipment on Ukraine's border with Russian-annexed Crimea
Oleh Slobodyan, the spokesman for the Ukrainian border guards, said on August 11 that "we can unequivocally say that Russian troops who were there since March are now being replaced with others."
"These troops are coming with more modern equipment and there are air assault units. In recent days, we see a strengthening of the units that are at the border. Their number increased," Slobodyan said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Kyiv on August 10 of trying to destabilize Russian-annexed Crimea through saboteurs. Kyiv has rejected the charges as "senseless and cynical".