A handout satellite composite image made available to media by NATO on 28 August 2014 showing what NATO says are military deployment and training areas in Rostov west, 50km east of Ukrainian border in Russia. The photo on the left taken on 19 June 2014 shows a small camp in comparison with a much larger camp in the same spot on 20 August 2014.
“We have known about the presence of Russian troops for several weeks. They are just increasing in number and becoming better armed,” Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Polish Radio on Thursday afternoon after reports of Russian troop movements in Ukraine.
Sikorski said that the worsening conflict in the ex-Soviet state represents the “worst security situation in decades”.
"We assess well over 1,000 Russian troops are now operating inside Ukraine. They are supporting separatists [and] fighting with them,” an official at NATO's military headquarters in Brussels told Reuters.
“The situation in the east of Ukraine has substantially deteriorated. Russia has sent a number of armoured personnel vehicles, tanks and troops,” Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Thursday.
“Russian military boots are on Ukrainian soil,” he added.
Ukrainian soldiers in trenches near Donetsk" photo: PAP / EPA / ROMAN PILIPEY
The Lithuanian foreign ministry issued a statement saying they strongly condemned, “the obvious invasion of the territory of Ukraine by the armed forces of the Russian Federation”.
"We are extremely concerned by the latest developments, including reports on what is happening on the ground," Maja Kocijancic, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, said at a news conference.
"We repeat our call on Russia to put an end to any form of border hostility and this obviously includes the flow of arms and military personnel into Ukraine," she said.
Moscow has denied entering Ukraine territory.
“Lies have become habitual for the so-called Ukrainian authorities [...] I can only say that there are no grounds for such claims,” Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs has said.
Russian troops
Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said on Thursday morning that serving Russian soldiers, on leave from their posts, are fighting Ukrainian troops alongside the rebels.
"Among us are fighting serving soldiers, who would rather take their vacation not on a beach but with us, among brothers, who are fighting for their freedom," Zakharchenko told the Russian Vesti.ru web site.
Earlier, pro-Russian separatists took over the town of Novoazovsk – on the Azov Sea and on the road linking Russia to the Russian-annexed Crimea - which has been under attack for two days, as Ukraine troops fled “for their lives,” a Ukraine defence ministry statement said.
A car burns after Ukranian army shelling in Donetsk, Ukraine, 26 August 2014. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on the sidelines of a summit in Minsk on 26 August that he wanted to find a compromise to end the bloodshed that includes the interests of the people in eastern Ukraine. EPA/VALENTIN EGORSHIN
The Russian ambassador to the OSCE, Andrey Kelin, however, says no Russian forces have crossed the border with Ukraine at any point.
He admitted though that Russian troops had incurred on Ukraine territory “by mistake” this week.
Referring to 10 paratroopers that Kiev said it had captured on Tuesday, Kelin said: "There is only one unit of Russian soldiers as they unintentionally crossed the border a couple days ago."
Tomasz Badowski, head of the International Relations Research Institute in Warsaw told Polish Radio that the attack in the Azov Sea area is in response to recent gains made by Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk region.
Badowski said that we are now dealing with a “regular war between two countries and the opening up of a new front and new phase in the conflict”.
More than 2000 have died in armed conflict between Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces since it began in April. (pg)