Ukraine accuses Russia of opening new front before leaders’ meeting
Earlier, a separate military statement said border guards
had halted the armored column outside Novoazovsk, Ukraine’s most south-easterly
point on the Azov Sea, and local residents, reached by phone, spoke of seeing
tanks and other armored vehicles moving near the town.
“This morning
there was an attempt by the Russian military in the guise of Donbas fighters to
open a new area of military confrontation in the southern Donetsk region,”
spokesman Andriy Lysenko told journalists.
Donbas is the local name given
to the industrialized east that has been the scene of a five-month
conflict.
If the rebels seized control of the southern regions, they
could support the separatist stronghold city of Donetsk from the south with
easier access to the Russian border.
Fighting between government forces
and pro-Russian separatists has been hitherto concentrated around the two big
rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukraine has accused Moscow of carrying
out regular cross-border shelling of government positions to shore up the rebels
who have been increasingly hemmed in by Kyiv’s forces.
It has also
charged Russia with carrying out cross-border incursions involving Russian
military to carry out operations in support of the rebels. Moscow denies these
charges.
The fresh charges of a blatant Russian military incursion into
Ukraine is certain to sour further the atmosphere between the two powers ahead
of talks on Tuesday between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russia’s
Vladimir Putin.
The talks in the Belarussian capital of Minsk, which will
also involve top European Union officials, will produce the first encounter
since June between the two leaders.
But with Russia blaming the crisis on
Ukraine’s military offensive and Ukraine refusing to show restraint until Russia
halts its support for the rebels the chances of any breakthrough appear
slim.
MILITARY THRUST
The new military thrust – whether it is by
separatist rebels alone or with the aid of Russian soldiers – might be aimed at
capturing Mariupol, a key government-held port city on the Azov Sea.
But
Lysenko said the main highway linking Novoazovsk to Mariupol, about 30 km west
along the coastline, was still under the control of government
forces.
“Novoazovsk has not been seized. The highway is under the control
of forces of the anti-terrorist operation. We have enough resources in Mariupol
itself to repel any attacks,” he said.
The commander of a Ukrainian
national guard unit in the area near Novoazovsk where the fighting was reported
to be happening told Reuters by telephone: “A war has broken out here.” He said
he could not speak and ended the conversation.
Semen Semenchenko,
commander of the pro-government Donbas militia, on his Facebook page gave a
different version of events, saying that around 50 armored vehicles had crossed
the border from Russia.
About 40 of them were trying to move in the
direction of Mariupol while the remainder were moving north towards
Amvrosiyivka, he said.
“The invasion of the Russian occupiers is taking
place,” he said. The attacking forces were, for now, “localized and easily
neutralized” and there had been no fighting yet around Mariupol itself, he
added.
The column’s movement towards Novoazovsk had been accompanied by
artillery shelling from across the border, he said.
Lyudmila, a resident
of Novoazovsk who was reached by telephone, said: “Everything began at 8 o’clock
this morning. Tanks appeared – no fewer than 7 of them, and Grads (rockets) and
armored vehicles.”
She said some of the tanks bore flags with emblems of
a separatist group calling itself the Orthodox Liberation Army.
She said
the rebel forces had fired on Novoazovsk from the village of Markine, about 7
kms away.
“Novoazovsk has died. People are hiding (from the shelling). We
heard rumors of an invasion just a couple of days ago. The Ukrainian flag has
been taken down on the city council offices,” she said.
Asked at a news
conference in Moscow about reports of an incursion across the border from Russia
into the area of Ukraine near Markine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
said: “I have not heard of this, but there is plenty of disinformation out there
about our ‘incursions’.”
The separatist rebellions erupted in Ukraine’s
mainly Russian-speaking east in April after street protests ousted a
Moscow-backed president in February.
When leaders with a pro-Western
agenda took power in Kyiv, Russia annexed Crimea and Putin spoke of Russia’s
right to defend the interests of Russian-speakers in Ukraine.
The United
Nations say more than 2,000 people – Ukrainian service personnel, civilians and
rebels – have been killed in the conflict.
The Ukrainian military said on
Sunday that the total number of Ukrainian forces killed stood at 722, though
Lysenko said on Monday that four more service personnel had died in the past 24
hours.