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Ukrainian Military Reports Sharp Increase In Fighting In East


Dmytro Shtyblikov (left) was one of three people detained by Russia's Federal Security Service on suspicion of preparing a terror attack in Crimea. He is shown being escorted to a court in Sevastopol on November 10.
Dmytro Shtyblikov (left) was one of three people detained by Russia's Federal Security Service on suspicion of preparing a terror attack in Crimea. He is shown being escorted to a court in Sevastopol on November 10.

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.

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