Russia is launching artillery attacks from its soil on Ukrainian troops and preparing to move heavier weaponry across the border, the US and Ukraine said on Friday in what appeared to be an ominous escalation of the crisis.
Russia accused Washington of lying and charged Ukraine with firing across the border on a Russian village. It also toughened its economic measures against Ukraine by banning dairy imports.
Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said five salvos of heavy rockets were fired across the border near the town of Kolesnikov in the Luhansk region in the country’s east. A border crossing point near Marynovka was fired on twice with mortars, also from the Russian side, while Ukrainian forces shot down three Russian drones, Lysenko said.
Photo: AFP
If true, the allegations mean Moscow is playing a more direct role in the fighting than it has been accused of up to now — a dangerous turn in what is already the gravest crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.
In addition, US Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the US has seen powerful rocket systems moving closer to the Ukraine border and that they could be put into the hands of the Russian-backed separatists as soon as yesterday.
It was not clear what those developments mean for the international investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. US authorities believe the separatists shot it down with a missile, perhaps in the mistaken belief it was a military plane.
The British Ambassador to the UN Mark Lyall Grant said the UN Security Council would likely endorse any agreement that Netherlands and Australia reach with Ukraine on deploying their police to the site. It is “quite likely that the Security Council will want to take note of that agreement, very possibly in a resolution,” Lyall Grant said, adding that he would not expect this to be controversial and it could happen very quickly.
Warren also corroborated Ukrainian reports of artillery fire from Russia. He said there was no indication Ukraine had shelled Russia.
“For the last several days Russian forces using Russian artillery from Russian soil have conducted attacks against Ukrainian military positions in Ukraine,” Warren said. “This is unquestionably an escalation from a military perspective.”
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to US allegations about cross-border shelling by saying: “Facts and details to confirm these lying contentions do not exist.”
The allegations come amid a Ukrainian government offensive against the separatists that has won back control of several important towns over the past few weeks.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told US Vice President Joe Biden in a telephone conversation on Friday that Ukrainian troops are increasingly coming under direct fire from the Russian side of the border, according to a White House statement.
Biden told Poroshenko that the US “would continue to coordinate with the European Union and the G7 about imposing further costs on Russia for its deeply destabilizing and irresponsible actions in Ukraine,” the statement said.
US Ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute accused Russia of waging “civil war by proxy” in Ukraine and said the Russians have about 15,000 troops massed near the border. He spoke at a security forum in Aspen, Colorado.
In another development, CNN said pro-Russian rebels abducted one of its local freelancers on Tuesday outside the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk and was still holding him on Friday. Anton Skiba had worked for the network for only a day when he was seized as he and other members of a CNN crew returned to their hotel from the jetliner crash site.
Russia said a group of its investigators came under Ukrainian mortar fire on Friday in the Russian village of Primiussky.
They were investigating the reported shelling two days earlier of the village, which is about 2.5km from the border. No deaths were reported.
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