Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)

Russia's federal security service, the FSB, has confirmed it has arrested 25 Ukrainian citizens on suspicion of planning to launch a sabotage campaign. Ukraine's state security service, the SBU, has quickly responded, dismissing the accusation of sabotage as "nonsense." Russian statements have not made clear when the arrests were made. The announcement of the arrests came hours after the SBU accused FSB operatives of involvement in planning the crackdown on antigovernment protests in Kiyv that ousted Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February. Earlier on Thursday, Russia's state-controlled NTV channel said those arrested included three activists from Right Sector, a Ukrainian nationalist group that played a role in Yanukovych's ouster. The broadcast said the suspects had instructions to take pictures of Russian military movements on the border with Ukraine.

Russia has protested to Germany after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble drew parallels between Moscow's annexation of Crimea and Nazi Germany's expansion. In a statement yesterday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said such comparisons were “unacceptable," adding that it had handed Germany's ambassador an official complaint over the matter. In an interview the same day, Schaeuble said: "I'm not so stupid that I would compare Hitler with anybody." He added that if he had actually made a mistake, he would apologize.

Chancellor Angela Merkel immediately distanced herself from Schaeuble's comments, saying Russia’s annexation of Crimea was a "stand-alone" case and highlighting its illegality.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in early March suggested regarding the Crimea situation that "if this all sounds familiar, it's what Hitler did back in the '30s." She subsequently said she was not comparing Putin to Hitler but rather emphasizing that lessons can be applied from a tactic that has been used before.

Russian historian and political commentator Andrei Zubov in early May compared the deployment of Russian troops to Crimea to Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria, the Czechoslovak Sudetenland, and Lithuania's Memel Territory, adding that Putin had "lost his mind." RFE/RL spoke to Zubov about the topic HERE.

Russia says it has arrested 25 Ukrainian citizens on suspicion of planning attacks in the country. Russia's federal security service said on April 3 that the detained were planning attacks between March 14 and 17 in Rostov, Volgograd, Tver, Orel, Belgorod, Kalmykia, and Tatarstan regions. Russia's state-controlled NTV channel earlier said those arrested included three activists from Right Sector, a Ukrainian nationalist group that played a role in pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster in February. The broadcast said the suspects were assigned by Ukraine's state security service to take pictures of Russia's military equipment near the Ukrainian border. Ukraine dismissed the accusation as "nonsense." The announcement of the arrests came hours after the SBU accused FSB operatives of involvement in planning the crackdown on antigovernment protests in Kiyv that ousted Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February.