Thread: Ukraine Says It Attacked Russian Armored Column Near Border

Ukraine Says It Attacked Russian Armored Column Near Border

VOA News
Last updated on: August 15, 2014 12:03 PM

The Ukrainian government says its troops have destroyed military vehicles that crossed the border from Russia into eastern Ukraine.
The office of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced the news Friday on the presidential website. It said Ukraine destroyed a "significant" portion of the military column.

British media had reported early Friday that a large column of Russian armored personnel carriers and other vehicles crossed the border into Ukraine. At a subsequent news conference, NATO leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen confirmed the sighting of "a Russian incursion.”


NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen speaks during an interview with Reuters at alliance headquarters in Brussels August 11, 2014.

"It is a clear demonstration of continued Russian involvement in the destabilization of eastern Ukraine,” NATO's Rasmussen said, according to the news agency AFP. He was speaking from Copenhagen, where he'd met with Denmark's defense minister.

Ukraine had reported that a column of armored personnel carriers and trucks had come across the border into its eastern region Thursday, an allegation the Kremlin had denied.

Rasmussen said the overnight sighting "just confirms the fact that we see a continued flow of weapons and fighters from Russia into the eastern Ukraine."

Concerns about convoy
Ukrainian officials had begun inspecting a 300-truck Russian convoy that Moscow says is carrying humanitarian aid for war-torn eastern Ukraine, but it was concerned Moscow might try to use the convoy to launch a secret invasion or to re-arm pro-Russian rebels who have suffered recent losses.

British media reported a large column of Russian armored personnel carriers and other vehicles crossed the border into Ukraine.

The Telegraph and The Guardian said the Russian army vehicles were seen about 30 kilometers from where the Russian aid convoy is stopped for inspections.

Russia has denied directly arming the rebels, saying the convoy is only aimed at helping alleviate suffering in eastern Ukraine.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond voiced alarm on Friday at reports that Russian military vehicles had crossed into Ukraine overnight, saying it could have "very serious'' consequences.

"If there are any Russian military personnel or vehicles in eastern Ukraine, they need to be withdrawn immediately or the consequences could be very serious,'' he told reporters at a European Union foreign ministers' meeting, apparently referring to media reports.

International relief officials say much of eastern Ukraine, including the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, lack medical supplies, water and electricity, as Ukrainian government forces press their offensive aimed at ending the rebellion by pro-Russian separatists.

Senior pro-Russian separatists quit

Click to enlarge

Meanwhile, two of the most senior pro-Russian separatists battling Ukraine forces near the Russian border quit Thursday, as Ukrainian troops pummeled locations near the rebel-held cities of Luhansk and Donetsk.

Artillery shells struck the center of Donetsk for the first time since rebels launched their rebellion against Ukrainian rule in April. Western news reports say at least 25 people were killed in the Donetsk shelling, while Ukraine reported nine troops killed.

The departures of Russian nationals Igor Strelkov and Valery Bolotov came as Russian President Vladimir Putin met Thursday with Russian lawmakers in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine and annexed earlier this year.

Putin seeks to reassure Crimeans

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Putin said that eastern Ukraine had been plunged into "bloody chaos and murder" and that "a large-scale humanitarian disaster" is unfolding there. He said Russia would do everything in its power to "ensure that this conflict is ended as quickly as possible, so that blood stops flowing in Ukraine."

He also said Russia should not fence itself off from the outside world, and "consolidate and mobilize but not for war or any kind of confrontation.''

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.

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