The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has demanded that the Russian Foreign Ministry grant access to Crimea to officials from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) within the shortest amount of time possible "for the purpose of providing an objective evaluation of the situation," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a report posted on its website on Friday.

Ukrainian diplomats also called on Russia to urgently grant representatives of the OSCE SMM, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine, and the office of the Verkhovna Rada human rights ombudsman access to detained Ukrainian citizens.

On August 10, the Russian Federal Security Service reported that two attempts to break into Crimea by "groups of saboteurs and terrorists" composed of members of special units of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry had been allegedly averted in the early hours of August 8, and that a Russian serviceman had been killed in the clash. The Federal Security Service also said "an agent network" of Ukrainian intelligence had been eliminated in the territory of Crimea and Ukrainians and Russians "who assisted in the preparation of the terrorist attacks" had been detained.

Kyiv, for its part, has denied the reports on the Ukrainian saboteurs.