Ukraine’s crisis entered dangerous new territory yesterday, with Kiev claiming its forces destroyed a Russian military convoy, while the US warned Moscow over its “provocative” efforts at destabilization.
Moscow and Kiev’s top diplomats agreed to a meeting with their French and German counterparts today in an attempt to calm the tensions, as wrangling continued over the fate of a mammoth Russian aid convoy parked up close to the Ukrainian frontier.
The US National Security Council warned of an “extremely dangerous and provocative” escalation in the crisis by Russia after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said his troops had blown up part of a small Russian army convoy that breached the border.
Russia dismissed the claim as “fantasies,” its latest denial of persistent allegations from the West that it is arming the rebels.
However, the EU insisted that Moscow “put an immediate stop to any form of border hostilities, in particular to the flow of arms, military advisers and armed personnel into the conflict region.”
The humanitarian situation in east Ukraine has deteriorated further, as four months of clashes that have killed more than 2,000 people and left people without water and basic services, raged on.
Moscow has sent nearly 300 trucks of what it says is humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine. The West and Kiev fear it could be a “Trojan horse” of arms and possibly even soldiers bound for the restive east of the country.
The convoy has been parked since Thursday about 30km from the border with Ukraine’s Lugansk region, as Kiev and Moscow continued to haggle over how it would cross into rebel-held territory.
The US warned Moscow against sending “vehicles, person or cargo of any kind into Ukraine, under any pretext” without Kiev’s permission.
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