Nato confirms Russian military incursion into Ukraine

"The hand from behind is becoming more overt," says top Nato commander.

Brigadier General Nico Tak, head of Nato’s crisis management centre, said at least 1,000 Russian troops were operating inside Ukraine. Yves Herman/ Reuters / August 28, 2014

NOVOAZOVSK, Ukraine // Two columns of tanks and military vehicles rolled into south-eastern Ukraine from Russia on Thursday after Grad missiles were fired at a border post and Ukraine’s overmatched border guards fled.

Echoing the comments by Ukrainian Col Andriy Lysenko, a Nato general said at least 1,000 Russian troops have poured into Ukraine with sophisticated equipment, leaving no doubt that the Russian military had invaded southeastern Ukraine.

“The hand from behind is becoming more and more overt now,” Brig Gen Nico Tak said.

Russia’s ultimate aim was to stave off defeat for the separatists and turn eastern Ukraine into a “frozen conflict” that would destabilise the country indefinitely, he said.

“An invasion is an invasion is an invasion,” tweeted the Lithuanian ambassador to the UN, Raimonda Murmokaite.

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis.

“Russian forces have entered Ukraine,” Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said, cancelling a foreign trip and calling an emergency meeting of the country’s security council. “Today the president’s place is in Kiev.”

Mr Poroshenko urged his citizens to resist giving into panic.

“Destabilisation of the situation and panic, this is as much of a weapon of the enemy as tanks.”

As Mr Poroshenko spoke, the south-eastern town of Novoazovsk appeared firmly under the control of separatists and their Russian backers, a new, third front in the war in eastern Ukraine between the separatists and Mr Poroshenko’s government in Kiev.

Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said: “Nato has never produced a single piece of evidence” of Russian troops operating in Ukraine.

He said the only Russian soldiers in Ukraine were the 10 captured this week, who Moscow insists had mistakenly wandered across the border.

“Over the past two weeks we have noted a significant escalation in both the level and sophistication of Russia’s military interference in Ukraine,” Gen Tak said. “Russia is reinforcing and resupplying separatist forces in a blatant attempt to change the momentum of the fighting, which is currently favouring the Ukrainian military.”

He said the 1,000 Russian troops was a conservative estimate and said another 20,000 Russian troops were right over the border.

Nato also produced satellite images to provide what it called additional evidence that Russian combat soldiers, equipped with sophisticated heavy weaponry, are operating inside Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

The leader of the insurgency, Alexander Zakharchenko, said yesterday that up to 4,000 Russians have fought on the separatist side since the armed conflict began in April.

The US government also has accused Russia of orchestrating the rebel campaign and sending in tanks, rocket launchers and armoured vehicles.

The new southeastern front raised fears that the separatists are seeking to create a land link between Russia and Crimea. If successful, it could give them or Russia control over the entire Sea of Azov and the gas and mineral riches that energy experts believe it contains.

Ukraine already lost roughly half its coastline, several major ports and significant Black Sea mineral rights in March when Russia annexed Crimea.

In Mariupol, a city of 450,000 about 30 kilometres to the west of Novoazovsk, a brigade of Ukrainian forces arrived at the airport on Wednesday, while deep trenches were dug a day earlier on the city’s edge.

In Donetsk, the largest rebel-held city, 11 people were killed by shelling overnight, the city said yesterday.

* Associated Press