Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko on Thursday accused Russian forces of invading Ukraine, saying that troops supporting separatists have moved along the border, and called an urgent security and defence council meeting to decide how to proceed.
Rebel forces backed by purported Russian tanks fought against Ukrainian forces on two fronts on Thursday: southeast of Donetsk, and in the southern town of Novoazovsk, about 20 kilometers from the Russian border, CNN reported.
Russian ambassador Andrey Kelin however was quoted by the Irish Times as telling reporters that: “No Russian forces are crossing in any point the border of Ukraine.”
According to CNN, separatist forces fired Grad rockets into the Novoazovsk, before sending in two convoys of tanks and armored personnel carriers.
Following the fall of the town, they also seized a number of villages in the Novoazovsk, Starobeshiv and Amvrosiiv districts.
Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, was quoted by Reuters as saying: "Today we reached the Sea of Azov, the shore, and the process of liberating our land, which is temporarily occupied by the Ukrainian authorities, will keep going further and further.”
According to Reuters, rebels now have the potential to threaten the strategic port city of Mariupol.
According to a NATO military officer, more than 1,000 Russian soldiers are believed to be fighting now in southern Ukraine, the Guardian reported.
Novoazovsk is strategically important because from the Russian border it is on the way to Ukraine’s Crimea region, which since March has been annexed by Russia.
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