Russian incursion into Ukraine a ‘fantasy’

Ukraine said its artillery destroyed part of a Russian armoured column that entered its territory on Thursday night and said its forces came under shellfire from Russia yesterday in what appeared to be a major military escalation between the ex-Soviet states.

Russia’s government denied its forces had crossed into Ukraine, calling the Ukrainian report “some kind of fantasy”, and raised its own concerns about activity by the US-led Nato alliance near its borders.

Moscow accused Kiev of trying to sabotage aid deliveries to eastern areas torn by fighting between pro-Russian separatists and the Western-backed government of Moscow’s former satellite.

In a call to US defence secretary Chuck Hagel, as reported by Russia’s state news agency RIA, defence minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow was “seriously concerned” by increased Nato activity and called for a ceasefire to get aid into Ukraine.

Nato said there had been a Russian incursion into Ukraine, which is not a member of its mutual defence pact, but it avoiding calling it an invasion. Other European capitals accused the Kremlin of escalating a conflict that has revived Cold War-era animosities and chilled the region’s struggling economies.

Kiev and its Western allies have repeatedly accused Russia of arming pro-Moscow separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, and of sending undercover military units on to Ukrainian soil. They have also expressed concern Russia may use an aid convoy as a pretext for stoking the conflict.

It was not clear whether the armoured column was officially part of the Russian army on active service.

But evidence of Russian military vehicles captured or destroyed on Ukrainian territory would give extra force to Kiev’s allegations — and possibly spark a new round of sanctions.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, told a news briefing that Kiev’s forces had picked up a Russian military column crossing the border under cover of darkness.

“Appropriate actions were undertaken and a part of it no longer exists,” Lysenko said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko briefed British Prime Minister David Cameron on the incident and told him a “significant” part of the Russian column had been destroyed, according to statement from Poroshenko’s office.

But Russia’s Defence Ministry said no such military force had crossed the border into eastern Ukraine. State news agency RIA quoted a ministry statement saying: “There was no Russian military column that crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border either at night or during the day.”

Britain summoned Russia’s ambassador to ask him to clarify reports of a military incursion into Ukraine, and European Union foreign ministers said any unilateral military actions by Russia in Ukraine would be a blatant violation of international law.

In a sign of efforts to unwind the crisis, the Kremlin said the Ukrainian and Russian chiefs of presidential staff met in Russia on Friday and the Ukrainian foreign minister said he would meet his Russian counterpart in Berlin on Sunday.

Responding to reports that a Russian column had entered Ukraine overnight, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance had seen what he called a Russian incursion into Ukraine.