EVIDENCE OF DIRECT MOSCOW MILITARY INVOLVEMENT IN UKRAINE GROWS

by Fortuna's Corner 

August 26, 2014

Evidence of direct Moscow military involvement in Ukraine grows

By Roman Olearchyk in Kiev and Courtney Weaver in Moscow

A combination photo shows men who identified themselves as Russian servicemen in still images from a video released on August 26, 2014 by the Ukrainian Security Service of what it said was a group of Russian soldiers captured on its territory. Ukraine said on Tuesday the group of Russian servicemen had crossed into Ukrainian territory on a “special mission,” contradicting Russian media which cited a defense ministry source in Moscow as saying they got there by accident. The names of the men are self-identified as (clockwise from top left): Sergei Alexeevich Smirnov, Alexei Generalov, Ivan Vasilievich Melchukov and Ivan Igorevich Romantsev. REUTERS/Ukrainian Security Service via Reuters TV

Growing evidence of direct Russian military involvement in the eastern Ukraine uprising is providing a tense backdrop to an expected meeting between President Vladimir Putin, his Kiev counterpart and the EU, aimed at defusing the most serious conflict between Moscow and the west since the Cold War.

Tuesday’s meeting between the three sides is expected to take place in the Belarusian capital of Minsk alongside a pre-planned summit of members of the Russian-led customs union of former Soviet states.

As Mr Putin arrived for the talks, the military stand-off in eastern Ukraine appeared to escalate as Ukrainian officials claimed Russian assault helicopters had fired on to its territory killing four border guards and injuring three.

“Ukrainian border guards were for the first time in this conflict fired at … by two Mi24 Russian Federation assault choppers,” said Col Andriy Lysenko, an army spokesperson. He added that troops faced a second day of attacks from Russian soil.

The US ambassador to Ukraine tweeted: “The new columns of Russian tanks and armour crossing into Ukraine indicates a Russian-directed counteroffensive may be under way.”

Just hours before the talks in the Belarus capital of Minsk, Kiev produced videos of 10 detained Russian paratroopers in which they say they were sent by Moscow to eastern Ukraine for military operations.

The release of the videos has sent Russia backpedalling. In an interview with state-owned newswire RIA Novosti, an unnamed Russian defence official confirmed that men in the videos were Russian soldiers but suggested that they had ended up in Ukraine “by accident”.

“These soldiers really did participate in patrolling a section of the Russian-Ukrainian border and crossed it in an unmarked section, probably by accident,” RIA reported the official as saying. “As far as we know, they did not resist arrest by the Ukrainian forces.”

The official claimed that the situation often happened in reverse, with Ukrainian soldiers accidentally ending up on Russian territory but Moscow had “never made a big hype about it. We just returned all of them to a safe place on Ukrainian territory”.

Although the Ukrainian government and its soldiers who are engaged in combat in eastern Ukraine have repeatedly claimed that it is not only Russian-armed separatists involved in the conflict but Russian soldiers as well, the videos mark the first concrete evidence made public by Kiev.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato’s secretary-general, warned in an FT interview on Monday that Moscow may be using controversial humanitarian convoys illegally crossing into eastern Ukraine to distract from a build-up of regular Russian forces in the area.

Moscow has repeatedly denied claims that it has engineered a proxy war in Ukraine by funnelling arms, mercenaries and Russian soldiers to support the four-month-long pro-Russian separatist uprising.

But evidence pointing to direct Russian involvement has been growing, including journalists’ witness accounts of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles rolling into eastern Ukraine.

In the videos posted on the website of Ukraine’s SBU state security service on Tuesday, one detained Russian paratrooper said: “We were sent to fight with people which, in principle, we should not fight with.”

Another said: “Please stop sending [our] boys here. This is not our war . . . and if we were not here, there would be nothing going on, they would resolve their own problems in their own country.”

Ukraine claims the Russian paratroopers were captured on Monday in the Donetsk region, where its forces claim they are battling local separatist militants armed by Moscow, imported mercenaries and Russian troops.

“Officially they are at exercises in various corners of Russia. In reality, they are participating in military aggression against Ukraine,” said Valeriy Geletey, Ukraine’s defence minister.

It was not immediately clear how Mr Putin would address the accusations and potential fresh threats from the west to de-escalate his stand-off with Ukraine or face additional economic sanctions.

Ahead of the talks, Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine’s foreign minister, tweeted: “Minsk will be difficult, but we are ready for diplomatic battle.”

Mr Poroshenko appealed to the international community for assistance in solving escalating the crisis.

“We appeal to the entire world with the plea to support Ukraine and help Ukraine establish an effective system of control at the border with Russia to prevent the inflow of arms, military vehicles and mercenaries,” he said.

“Ukraine is paying a very high price for its independence and right to independently chose its path towards civilized development,” he added referring to Kiev’s decision to loosen Moscow’s grip by adopting more EU-focused foreign and trade policies.