Kiev and Bucharest today rejected Moscow's accusations that Ukraine and Britain tried to divert a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet to Romania with a supersonic "Dagger" missile with the aim of provocation against the NATO base under construction in Constanta, reported Agence France-Presse, BTA reported.
Russia, which launched a large-scale offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, regularly accuses Kiev and its allies of encroaching on its interests on its own territory, most often without providing evidence, AFP notes.
This morning, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had "terminated the operation of the intelligence services of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and their British patrons aimed at diverting abroad a MiG-31 fighter jet of the Russian Armed Forces carrying a "Dagger" hypersonic missile.
The Ukrainian Center for Combating Disinformation, a body of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, described these claims as "propaganda". "Spreading such false accusations is a typical tactic of Russian intelligence services," the center added on social media.
According to the FSB, the plane was supposed to be transferred to the NATO air base in Constanta, Romania, located on the Black Sea coast, where it could have been “shot down“ by air defense.
Romanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Cernea described the accusations as "fabricated" and compared them to a "Soviet spy novel" in a statement published in "Ex".
"However, the Russian aggressions and provocations are real, which these stories about planes and spies are trying to cover up", the spokesman stressed.
In a video clip by the FSB broadcast on Russian television, a man with a masked face, presented as one of the pilots who was offered the offer, claims to have received an e-mail from Ukrainian intelligence services offering to kill the plane's commander and hijack the plane. In return, he was to receive three million dollars and "citizenship of a Western country".
The FSB added that in "response to this provocation" Russian forces launched a strike with "Kinzhal" missiles against a Ukrainian army electronic intelligence center in Brovary, on the outskirts of Kiev, and against the Starokostyantinov air base in Khmelnytskyi region.
The announcement comes as Russia, whose forces are better equipped and more numerous, continues to advance in eastern Ukraine, and in particular in the Donetsk region, where the main fighting is concentrated. US President Donald Trump's diplomatic efforts to end Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II have stalled, AFP notes.