Ukraine says Russian forces cross border in tanks, armored vehicles

KIEV — Ukraine charged that Russian forces crossed into eastern Ukraine early Monday in military vehicles, including tanks, as Russia vowed to send a second convoy into the country this week to deliver humanitarian aid to areas held by pro-Moscow separatists. Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Russian military vehicles with the insignia of the separatists’ self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic “violated the state border of Ukraine” near Novoazovsk in the southern part of Donetsk region. He said at least 10 tanks, two armored vehicles and two trucks crossed at 5:20 a.m. Monday.

 The highway leading to the key port city of Mariupol is currently under control of the Ukrainian military, he said. Lysenko said in a briefing Monday that the Russian military vehicles flying rebel flags moved toward the village of Shcherbak, where they engaged in battle with soldiers of a Ukrainian border unit, who then called for reinforcements. He said the Ukrainian forces managed to stop the advance of the convoy with gunfire just outside the villages of Shcherbak and Markyne.

 The villages are north of the larger town of Novoazovsk, about five miles from the Russian border. Another military source said that after the encounter outside the villages, Ukrainian troops fell back to regroup and the Russian tanks remain in the area. On Saturday, Lysenko said, Russian forces fired artillery across the border and later used rocket launchers to destroy the Ukrainian checkpoint there. In Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the Ukrainian claim that Russian tanks had opened a new front in Ukraine, saying it was likely “misinformation.” Lavrov also announced Monday that Russia would send a second aid convoy to eastern Ukraine this week, using the same route employed by trucks that entered Luhansk without the Ukrainian government’s permission last week. “We are convinced that it needs to be done this week,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, adding that he hoped the second convoy would go “more smoothly.”

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-russian-forces-cross-border-in-tanks-armored-vehicles/2014/08/25/8cb7d1d4-2c3f-11e4-994d-202962a9150c_story.html