The head of State of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has intruded on Thursday in the presidential elections of Ukraine against Petro Poroshenko, the current holder. In his first public statements after the incident that occurred Sunday in the Kerch strait, the leader of the Kremlin attacked his colleague from Ukraine and he was accused of having organized a “provocation” for their own benefit. “There are clear signs that it was a provocation prepared in advance and intended to be used as an excuse to declare a state of war in the country,” said Putin in a debate aimed at attracting investors in Moscow. “It has nothing to do with attempts to regulate the relations between Russia and Ukraine. It is a game to increase the tension,” he said.

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A total of 24 sailors, crew members of the flotilla Ukrainian, shot, tackled and jailed Sunday by border guards russians are in Crimea, and they are being sent to pretrial detention for two months by Russian judges awaiting trial for “trespassing” in waters that Russia considers its own.

According to Putin, the cruise of the fleet in ukraine has been “a provocation” organized by the authorities of Ukraine and its president in the context of the elections”. Going above and beyond in its judgments, the leader of the Russian has been attributed to his colleague Ukrainian the desire to improve their “rating” election. Poroshenko, as he said, is in “fifth position” and “may not pass to the second round,” in the presidential elections of march 31.

These elections have been confirmed by the verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and are not affected by the “state of war”, which has a duration of 30 days and is effective from Thursday, in 10 of the 27 administrative units of the State.

Moving into a thorny soil, Putin, with aplomb, has compared the declaration of a “state of war” because of “a small incident” with the attitude of Kiev to events much more serious in the past. Ukraine did not declare the state of war in 2014 “when Crimea decided to join Russia,” said Putin, referring to the annexation of the peninsula with the help of Russian soldiers armed and masked. Neither happened, for the “civil war” in the east of Ukraine, said the Russian head of State, referring to the Trbet war in which his country’s aid militarily and financially to the secessionist local.

According to Putin, the attitude of Poroshenko is “a dirty game in the interior of the country” in order to “exacerbate tension”. The authorities in Kiev, has said, “sell with success the environment antirruso”, practice a “shortsighted policy” and, instead of solving the problems, “ask for money to the International Monetary Fund”.

The Russian president has defended the actions of its border guards and has ensured that the russians and ukrainians were, are and will be “peoples nearby”. Putin has not mentioned the treaty, the Russian-Ukrainian “collaboration in the use of the sea of Azov and the Kerch strait” (in force since 2003), which provides for free navigation for vessels of both countries, but has welcomed the passage through the Kerch strait last September of a flotilla of ukraine, which “fulfilled the requirements” of the frontier guard Russian.

it Is unlikely that relations between Kiev and Moscow to improve before the presidential election, and nor is it likely to register progress in the conflict Donbás, the subject of negotiations in the so-called Minsk forum (involving the secessionist pro-Russian) under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Analysts linked with the Kremlin hope that the presidential elections give victory to a leader more to the liking of the Kremlin to Poroshenko, who has complained that Putin refuses to put to the phone.

A sector of the Russian leadership (the more closely linked with the security services) bet by Yulia Timoshenko, the former prime minister, and the best situated between the candidates, have said informed sources in Moscow. This sector is willing to help to Timoshenko, which, according to this scheme, would maintain a rhetoric very antirrusa, but behind-the-scenes work with Victor Medvedchuk, considered to be the man of Putin in Ukraine, say the same sources.

Medvedchuk, who was the head of the administration in the time of president Leonid Kuchma, participates in the negotiations of Minsk and has performed delicate missions (exchange of prisoners) and liaison between the parties in conflict. According to sources, a part of the Russian leadership believes that Timoshenko could at least calm the situation in the east of Ukraine, and create the illusion that things are getting better, which, ultimately, could allow Russia to free itself of some of the international sanctions weighing on her. The removal of the sanctions is one of the priority objectives of the Kremlin, noted the sources.

in the meantime, maintaining the tensions in the Black sea and the Azov. In 2016 the Russian Defense ministry announced that it had located a regiment of missiles S-400 in the Crimea. This Wednesday, Russia has announced that it will base a new division of anti-aircraft missiles ground-to-air S-400 in the peninsula. “Soon the new missile system will enter service”, stated to the agency Interfax, colonel Vádim Astáfiev, spokesman of the military district south.