Russian forces in Crimea on high alert ahead of test:
Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reports that Russian air-defense forces in the Crimea region have been placed on high alert on the eve of planned Ukrainian missile tests near the Black Sea peninsula.
Moscow has protested the tests planned for December 1-2 near Crimea, which Russia seized and illegally annexed from Ukraine in March 2014.
Russia's Foreign Ministry on November 30 called the planned missile tests a "new large-scale provocation," saying they were aimed at "escalating the conflict between Ukraine and Russia."
Moscow Calls Ukraine's Planned Crimea Missile Tests 'Provocation'
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has called Ukraine's plans to conduct missile tests in airspace near the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula a "new large-scale provocation.”
Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on November 30 that the planned tests were aimed at “escalating the conflict between Ukraine and Russia."
On November 29, Ukraine issued an additional formal notice to airmen (NOTAM) on airspace danger zones in connection with the tests planned for December 1-2.
Kyiv plans to test air-to-air combat missile systems.
It said the tests will be conducted in accordance with international regulations entirely in Ukraine's airspace over the open sea.
Media reports in Ukraine quoted Defense Ministry sources as saying that Moscow had officially warned Kyiv it would respond to the missile tests with a missile attack.
Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on November 30 that he had never heard about such warnings.
Russian illegally annexed Crimea in March 2014 and an ensuing war between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed at least 9,600 people in eastern Ukraine.
Based on reporting by UNIAN, Interfax, and TASS
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
A news item just in from our correspondent in Brussels, Rikard Jozwiak:
EU Court Upholds Some Sanctions On Russian Businessman
BRUSSELS -- An EU court has partly upheld sanctions imposed on Arkady Rotenberg, a Russian businessman and close associate of President Vladimir Putin.
Rotenberg was added to the EU travel ban and asset-freeze list in the summer of 2014 for his role in the Ukraine crisis.
In its November 30 ruling, the EU's General Court annulled the sanctions against Rotenberg for the period July 2014 to March 2015 because the EU legal reasoning was at fault, a statement said.
However, the Luxembourg-based court said the two additional grounds cited in March 2015 justified the restrictions.
The additional reasons provided included the fact that Rotenberg is the owner of the company Stroygazmontazh, which received a Russian state contract to build a bridge from Russia to Crimea.
He is also the chairman of the board of directors of the publishing house Prosveschenyie, which was behind a campaign to persuade Crimean children that they are now Russian citizens living in Russia.
Rotenberg has two months to appeal the ruling.