Fighting continued near Mariupol, Ukraine, on Wednesday morning, even after face-to-face talks between Russias Vladimir Putin and Ukraines Petro Poroshenko. Photo: AP
UKRAINIAN President Petro Poroshenko has confirmed Russian forces have invaded the war-torn east part of the country, and has called an emergency meeting of Ukraine's security and defence council.
He has also cancelled a working trip to Turkey, and comes after the US ambassador in Kiev declared Russia was"directly involved" in fighting in the war-torn east of Ukraine.
"An increasing number of Russian troops are intervening directly in fighting in Ukrainian territory," Geoffrey Pyatt wrote on Twitter, adding that Moscow was "directly involved in the fighting" and had sent in its "newest air defense systems including the SA-22".
Pyatt's tweets come after a NATO diplomat also comfirmed the Russian missile defence system has been detected in a rebel-held area of Ukraine, after a huge convoy of tanks and weaponry came through the nation's southeast.
The NATO diplomat also told AFP on condition of anonymity that the SA-22 air defence system, which has a range of up to 20 kilometres, was "now in the zone", adding that Russian support for the rebels had become "more open" recently.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin was "not interested in breaking up" Ukraine, but said Russia will send more aid convoys to Ukraine "in the nearest future", despite complaints from Kiev they breach its sovereignty.
The news of the missile system comes after Ukraine appealed for NATO's help after a huge convoy of tanks and weaponry from Russia arrived.
It's the latest blatant move by an increasingly bold Russia after weeks of mounting evidence it is directly involved in Ukraine's civil war.
Unmarked Russian military hardware, the social media posts of Russian soldiers — even funerals for Russian soldiers — are just part of the growing tide of evidence of Russia's direct intervention.
Moscow was forced to admit Tuesday that a number of its troops captured by Ukrainian forces had crossed the border "by accident" but continues to deny arming the pro-Kremlin separatists who have been fighting Kiev's rule for four months in an increasingly bloody conflict.
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Ukraine has accused its former masters in Moscow of sending in weapons and troops after Kiev government forces made major advances against the rebels.
Under occupation ... a member of a Ukrainian volunteer battalion near the small city of Novoazovsk, Donetsk region. Picture: Alexander Khudoteply Source: AFP
Kiev's claims of the fresh invading force came just hours after the first meeting in three months between President Petro Poroshenko and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin failed to achieve any concrete breakthrough despite talk of a peace road map.
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The Ukrainian military says a convoy of up to 100 tanks, armoured vehicles and rocket launchers was seen travelling towards Telmanove, a town about 80 kilometres south of the main rebel-held city of Donetsk and 20 kilometres from the Russian border.
The direction the force came offered few alternatives than a crossing of the Russian border, they say.
The United States' State Department agrees.
Advance halted ... A villager walks past an Ukrainian flat and a bilboard and despicting Russian president Vladimir Putin bearing a Hitler moustache and haircut. The mysterious new offensive follows significant gains by Ukrainian forces. Source: AFP Source: AFP
BOLD OFFENSIVE
The heavily armed Russian-backed separatist forces "came out of nowhere" to capture new territory yesterday far from their previous battles with government troops.
It's a move that has high strategic importance for Russia. The push west along Ukraine's strategic coastline appears aimed at creating a land link between Russia and the already annexed Crimea peninsula, which also would give them control over the entire Azov Sea.
After a third day of heavy shelling that sent many residents fleeing, rebel fighters with dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles entered Novoazovsk, a resort town of 40,000 on the Azov Sea, the mayor told The Associated Press.
Front line ... A Ukrainian serviceman walks past a trench near Lugansk during shelling. Source: AFP Source: AFP
The separatist attack appears to have caught government forces off guard, and they were scrambling Wednesday to build up defences. The offensive also adds to growing evidence that the rebels receive Russian support.
Oleg Sidorkin, the mayor of Novoazovsk, told the AP by telephone that the rebel forces had rolled into town from positions near Ukraine's southernmost border with Russia.
To travel to this spot through Ukraine from the main front line around Donetsk and Luhansk, far to the north, the rebels would have had to cross territory controlled by government troops. The more logical conclusion is that they came across the nearby Russian border.
Ground force ... A Pro-Russian rebel passes by a car which was hit by shrapnel from a shell after shelling in the town of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, yesterday. Source: AP Source: AP
RUSSIA'S GAMBIT
Ukraine and Western governments have long accused Russia of playing a direct role in the conflict, supplying troops and weaponry to the rebels. Russia consistently denies the claims, but its stance is increasingly dismissed abroad.
"Information, which in recent hours has gained another hard-facts confirmation, is that regular Russian units are operating in eastern Ukraine," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said yesterday. "This information, coming from NATO and confirmed by our intelligence, is in fact unequivocal."
The US government accused Russia last night of orchestrating a new military campaign in Ukraine that is helping rebel forces expand their fight and sending in tanks, rocket launchers and armoured vehicles.
"These incursions indicate a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely underway in Donetsk and Luhansk," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters. She also voiced concern about overnight deliveries of matériel in southeast Ukraine near Novoazovsk and said Russia was being dishonest about its actions, even to its own people.
Redeployment ... Ukrainian soldiers park their hardware on the roadside as they wait for the start of the march into the town of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine. Source: AP Source: AP
Russian forces, she said, are being sent 50 kilometres inside Ukraine, without them or their families knowing where they are going. She cited reports of burials in Russia for those who've died in Ukraine and wounded Russian soldiers being treated in a St. Petersburg hospital.
The United States navy guided missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf was last night photographed passing through the narrow Dardanelles, a narrow straight of water which links the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.
Associated Press journalists on the Ukrainian border with Russia have seen the rebels with a wide range of unmarked military equipment — including tanks, Buk missile launchers and armoured personnel carriers — and have run into many Russians among the rebel fighters.
Ukraine also captured 10 soldiers from a Russian paratrooper division Monday around Amvrosiivka, a town about 20 kilometres from the Russian border.
In Moscow, Denis Pushilin, one of the leaders of the pro-Russia insurgency, told reporters he had no information about whether Russian soldiers had entered Ukraine near Novoazovsk. But he said the Ukrainian separatists have been joined by many volunteers from Russia and also Serbia.
AP reporters in eastern Ukraine have heard a variety of Russian accents from all over the country among the rebel fighters.
Shady origins ... A Pro-Russian rebel walks in a passage at a market damaged by shelling in Petrovskiy district in the town of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. Source: AP Source: AP
RUSSIANS SEIZE CITY
Yesterday AP reporters saw more than 20 shells fall around Novoazovsk in a one-hour span. Many people were leaving the town, while others were rushing back in to evacuate relatives. Later in the day, access from the west was blocked by Ukrainian soldiers and the presence of rebels in Novoazovsk could not be independently confirmed.
A spokesman for Ukraine's security council, Colonel Andriy Lysenko, said he had no information that Novoazovsk had been occupied. Earlier, he said the shelling around the town was coming from both Ukrainian and Russian territory. Ukrainian security officials said nearby villages had also come under shelling.
The artillery shells in Novoazovsk appeared to be flying between rebel and government positions.
"It hit a tree, there was a blast and the shrapnel came down here," said Alexei Podlepentsov, an electrician at the Novoazovsk hospital, which was struck by shelling Tuesday.
In Mariupol, a city of 450,000 about 30 kilometres to the west, defences were being built up. A brigade of Ukrainian forces rushed to the airport yesterday afternoon, while deep trenches were dug a day earlier on the city's edge. Other troops were blocking traffic from leaving the port heading east.
Collateral damage ... Residents look at a burned car, hit by shelling in the town of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. Source: AP Source: AP
UKRAINE'S LOSS, RUSSIA'S GAIN
Ukraine has already lost more than 750 kilometres of coastline in Crimea, along with a major naval port and significant mineral rights in the Black Sea.
If the separatists were to seize a land bridge to Crimea that would be a further loss of more than 250 kilometres of coastline. This would give Russia control over the entire Azov Sea and any offshore oil and gas reserves.
This would leave Ukraine with about 450 kilometres of coastline to the west of Crimea.
Fighting also persisted elsewhere yesterday, and Lysenko said 13 Ukrainian troops had been killed over the past day.
In Donetsk, the largest rebel-held city further north, at least three people were killed on a main road when their cars were hit by shrapnel from falling artillery shells.
On guard ... A Ukrainian soldier in the village of Bezimenne, eastern Ukraine. Source: AP Source: AP
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