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Russian troops and Ukrainian military battle worsens, fears that invasion is now underway

By FnF Desk | PUBLISHED: 28, Aug 2014, 15:23 pm IST | UPDATED: 28, Aug 2014, 15:42 pm IST

Russian troops and Ukrainian military battle worsens, fears that invasion is now underway Kiew: Fighting between what Ukrainian and Western officials say are Russian troops and the Ukrainian military worsened early Thursday, prompting fears in Ukraine that a Russian invasion of their territory has begun.

According to the Washington Post report, Ukrainian officials say Ukrainian troops are continuing to battle combined Russian and separatist forces on a new southern front around the border town of Novoazovsk, east of Crimea on the Sea of Azov. A military spokesman also said Russian troops are increasing surveillance from northern Crimea, the autonomous Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in March.

As firefights and shelling continued all day Wednesday and into the night, there were differing reports on whether Novoazovsk, a previously quiet border town, had fallen to Russian-backed separatists. Russian troops and their allies do control villages north of there, according to military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.

Referring to a “Russian-directed counteroffensive,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday, “Clearly, that is of deep concern to us, but we’re also concerned by the Russian government’s unwillingness to tell the truth, even as its soldiers are found 30 miles inside Ukraine.”

Widespread reports of Russian troop movements and fighting in Ukraine provoked renewed criticism from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, whose secretary general said in an interview with British reporters Wednesday that it will deploy forces at new bases in eastern Europe for the first time in response to the Ukraine crisis and to deter Putin, according to the Guardian newspaper.

Ukraine accused Russia of launching a new military incursion across its eastern border, as hopes quickly fade that talks between their two presidents might mark a turning point. (Reuters)

“We have reports from multiple sources showing quite a lively Russian involvement in destabilizing eastern Ukraine,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. “We have seen artillery firing across the border and also inside Ukraine. We have seen a Russian military buildup along the border. Quite clearly, Russia is involved in destabilizing eastern Ukraine … You see a sophisticated combination of traditional conventional warfare mixed up with information and primarily disinformation operations. It will take more than NATO to counter such hybrid warfare effectively.”

Moscow will consider the activity of NATO forces near Russia’s borders in its own military planning, Russia’s envoy to NATO told the Interfax news agency Thursday.

“Obviously, we will take into consideration the configuration and activity of the NATO forces at the Russian borders in our military planning, and will take all that is necessary to reliably provide security and to ensure safety against any threats,” envoy Alexander Grushko told Interfax.

German leader Angela Merkel demanded an explanation from Putin for the Russian troop movements, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported. The conversation between the two leaders took place as fighting intensified, the BBC reported.

NATO’s Canada declaration also posted a snarky map on its Twitter account with outlines of the countries titled “Russia” and “Not Russia” — a stab at Russian assertions that 10 paratroopers captured in Ukraine earlier this week wandered into the country by mistake.

The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, brushed aside NATO’s criticism in an interview with Russian reporters Wednesday, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

“It's not a new declaration. They do this regularly and Russia regularly repeats its denial, declaring that this information doesn't correspond with reality,” Peskov said.

Peskov also said that Russia planned to send a humanitarian convoy back into Ukraine, after days of intense negotiation over the last convoy of around 220 trucks that entered the country without permission or the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross last Friday. The trucks were purportedly used to bring food and relief supplies to besieged residents near Luhansk, one of two rebel strongholds in the east.

“A second humanitarian convoy can be sent very soon. The Russian side is ready to do it tomorrow, so long as this operation, like last time, will happen under the auspices of the ICRC and total interaction with the Ukrainian authorities, though we can't give a specific date,” Peskov said.

The increased fighting came after Tuesday’s meeting between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, who exchanged a chilly handshake at a regional summit and pledged some cooperation in the ongoing crisis. Putin and Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko had spent more than two hours in a private meeting Tuesday and, afterwards, pledged cooperation on tightening Ukraine’s eastern border and humanitarian relief for besieged residents in battleground cities.

Yet even as both leaders gave lip service to the idea of peace, verbal sniping on both sides continued — as reports of Russian tanks and soldiers on the ground grew. At his news briefing Wednesday, Lysenko showed a new video of most of the Russian paratroopers. The deputy commander of the men said they had “illegally come into the territory of Ukraine” for what they thought was a military exercise and were captured and detained.

Russia may not want to talk cease-fire terms, but it also isn’t interested in breaking up Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.

“We are not interested in breaking up the state,” Lavrov said, when asked at a youth forum why Russia has not yet recognized the rebels’ self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics as a state.

Ukrainian officials on Wednesday pushed back against Russia’s opposition to its desire to sign a trade agreement with the European Union, the genesis of the conflict that began in November. And Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatensyuk raised fears of a purported Russian plan to cut off gas supplies to Europe that go through Ukraine this winter. More than 15,000 were without gas in one Eastern city after the lines were cut, the Ukrainian military said Wednesday.

“Russia is and will be a reliable supplier of energy resources to Europe,” Peskov said. “We hope that Ukraine in turn will guarantee unhindered transit.”

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine’s east is worsening, with thousands in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk without water and reliable food, and thousands more fleeing the southern city of Mariupol this week amid fears of a Russian invasion on the southern border. A UN report expected to be released Friday says that the death toll has dramatically worsened in recent weeks, with around 36 people dying daily, for a total of 2,200 killed in the conflict so far.