I/.
http://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-border-officials-inspecting-russian-convoy-kiev-085145166.html
Tensions boil over Ukraine as Russian convoy waits
By Anais Llobet with Maria Antonova in Kiev
2 hours ago
Kamensk-Shakhtinsky (Russia) (AFP) - Diplomatic efforts to douse an
international firestorm over claims that Ukraine's forces destroyed Russian
military vehicles ratcheted up Saturday as Moscow demanded that Kiev allow
its mammoth aid convoy to cross the volatile border.
Related Stories
Russian aid convoy waiting for security guarantees Associated Press
Ukraine sets conditions for Russian convoy as death toll soars AFP
Russia denies its vehicles destroyed in Ukraine Associated Press
[$$] EU Foreign Ministers Say Russia May Face Tougher Sanctions The
Wall Street Journal
Ukraine sets terms for Russian aid as convoy heads to border AFP
Moscow and Kiev's foreign ministers prepared for an urgent meeting with
their French and German counterparts Sunday after the United States blasted
Russia for its "extremely dangerous" escalation of the crisis in Ukraine.
French President Francois Hollande meanwhile urged Ukraine to show
"restraint and good judgement" as it pushed on with a brutal offensive to
oust insurgents after four months of fighting that has killed over 2,000
people and left the region facing a humanitarian disaster.
The latest spike in tensions came after Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko claimed his troops had blown up part of a small Russian military
convoy that British media spotted breaching the porous frontier on Thursday.
Russia dismissed the claims as "fantasies", its latest denial of persistent
allegations from the West that it is arming the rebels.
- Aid 'still waiting' -
View gallery
A pro-Russian 122-mm self-propelled howitzer moves …
A pro-Russian 122-mm self-propelled howitzer moves along a street in
Donetsk, eastern Ukraine on Aug ...
Amid the international slanging match, some 280 trucks packed with what
Russia claims is humanitarian aid waited for a third day some 30 kilometres
(20 miles) from a rebel-held border post as Moscow and Kiev haggled over
letting it across.
The West and Kiev fear the convoy could be a "Trojan horse" to bolster the
flagging pro-Kremlin rebellion in eastern Ukraine or provide Moscow with an
excuse to send in the 20,000 troops that NATO says it has amassed on the
border.
Russia's foreign ministry has repeatedly demanded in recent days that Kiev
cease fire in order for the aid to reach residents of blighted cities in
the east who have been stuck for days without water or power.
AFP correspondents at the border heard blasts from the Ukrainian side and
saw Moscow's military hardware rumble along Russian territory close to the
frontier.
Ukraine says it has sent scores of border officials to the Russian side to
scour aid cargo but insists they are waiting for permission from the Red
Cross to start work.
View gallery
A Russian military truck transporting a self-propelled …
A Russian military truck transporting a self-propelled howitzer 2S19 -
MSTA-S (M1990 "Farm" ...
A spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross -- which is
meant to be overseeing the operation -- told AFP that so far no inspections
have started as negotiations continue.
"There was a meeting this morning between the Ukrainians and the Russians.
We did not participate," said Galina Balzamova. "We are still waiting for
agreement" between them, she added.
- Rebel reinforcements -
While Russia has denied all claims it is funnelling weapons to the rebels,
a top separatist leader claimed that reinforcements trained across the
border had arrived to prop up the ailing insurgency.
A fresh injection of firepower consisted of 150 pieces of hardware and
1,200 personnel "who have received four months of training on Russian
territory," Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed
Donetsk People's Republic, said in a video posted on a rebel website.
View gallery
Ukrainian soldiers detain a man (C) suspected of spying …
Ukrainian soldiers detain a man (C) suspected of spying for pro-Russian
militants at a checkpoint ne ...
"They have been brought in at the most crucial moment," he said.
In Donetsk, the largest rebel bastion, the rumble of shelling could be
heard Saturday as government troops tightened the vice around separatist
fighters holed up there.
AFP journalists found several houses aflame in Makiyivka, a city adjoining
Donetsk, and saw large craters around a residential neighbourhood near a
base of rebel special forces.
Human Rights Watch quoted residents fleeing Lugansk -- the rebels second
largest stronghold that has seen some of the worst fighting -- as saying
that the city was cut off from electricity, gas, and cell phone coverage,
and that it was difficult to find drinking water and food.
The United Nations says over 285,000 people have fled the fighting in the
east.
Ukraine's security spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Saturday that three
soldiers died and 13 were wounded in the past 24 hours.
President Poroshenko meanwhile wrote on Twitter that the army has taken
over Zhdanivka, a town about 45 kilometres northeast of Donetsk.
- New hopes for talks -
A flurry of diplomacy to calm tensions saw Ukraine, Russia, France and
Germany agree to get their top diplomats together for a meeting in Berlin
on Sunday.
Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Bild newspaper that he hoped the
talks would help "put an end to violent fighting" in eastern Ukraine and
provide the territories with "urgent and necessary aid".
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said the sides "need to talk".
The French presidency suggested that Sunday's meeting could be a "first
step" towards another face-to-face encounter between the heads of state.
II.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28817347
16 August 2014 Last updated at 17:48
Ukraine crisis: Rebel fighters 'trained in Russia'
There has been an increased level of military activity near the Ukrainian
border, reports Steve Rosenberg
The new rebel leader in east Ukraine's Donetsk region has said his forces
include 1,200 fighters who underwent military training in Russia.
Addressing a meeting, Alexander Zakharchenko said the fighters had trained
"four months on the territory of the Russian Federation".
The rebels, he said, had reserves of 150 combat vehicles, including tanks.
An earlier mistranslation of his words suggested Mr Zakharchenko had said
the vehicles were on their way from Russia.
Russia has denied claims by Ukraine and Western reporters that military aid
to the rebels has been crossing the border.
More than 2,000 civilians and combatants have been killed since mid-April,
when Ukraine's new government sent troops to put down an uprising by
pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
A huge humanitarian aid convoy from Russia is stalled on the Russian side
of the border about two hours drive from Luhansk, apparently awaiting
inspection by Ukrainian border guards.
Red Cross official Pascal Cuttat said on Saturday there were still no
security guarantees in place for his staff to escort the lorries, although
"technical conditions" had been agreed with Ukraine and Russia for crossing
the border.
On Friday Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu assured his US counterpart
Chuck Hagel that there were no Russian military personnel involved with the
convoy, nor would it be used as a pretext for a Russian military
intervention.
Journalists who were invited to inspect some of the 280 or so vehicles on
Friday found humanitarian aid inside but also noticed that some of the
lorries were not full to capacity.
'Trained in Russia'
Mr Zakharchenko, who became the prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk
People's Republic (DPR) last week, made the announcement to the rebels'
parliament on Friday, with a video of his speech (in Russian)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjAvnUa1Wak> posted on YouTube.
Littering the speech with military jargon, he said: "There are, at present,
in the axis of the corridor [linking rebels in Donetsk with those in
Luhansk and the Russian border] - there have been assembled -reserves of
the following order: 150 units of military hardware of which about 30 are
actual tanks and the rest are infantry fighting vehicles and armoured
personnel carriers, and 1,200 personnel who underwent four months of
military training on the territory of the Russian Federation."
The rebel leader went on a Russian pro-Kremlin TV channel on Saturday to
reject reports that the hardware had come from Russia.
"The Ukrainian military have left us so much hardware that we can't find
enough people to crew it - I mean tanks, troop carriers, Grad [multiple
rocket] launchers and so on," he told Life News (video in Russian)
<http://lifenews.ru/news/138505>.
He added that "ethnic Ukrainian" volunteers from Russia, not servicemen,
were fighting for the rebels, along with "Turks; a great many Serbs;
Italians and Germans; and even two Romanians".
Ukrainian servicemen guard a checkpoint outside Donetsk
Russia insists the humanitarian aid convoy now parked near the border has
no military personnel
A museum after shell damage in Donetsk
A museum after shell damage in Donetsk
Ukraine said on Friday it had partially destroyed an armoured column that
had crossed from Russia on Thursday evening. Two UK newspaper reporters
witnessed the alleged incursion.
Russia's defence ministry responded by saying the incursion reports were
"some kind of fantasy" and Moscow has consistently denied directly arming
or training the rebels.
But the incident prompted a flurry of Western condemnation.
"Any unilateral military actions on the part of the Russian Federation in
Ukraine under any pretext, including humanitarian, will be considered by
the European Union as a blatant violation of international law," a
statement by EU foreign ministers
<http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/144314.pdf>
issued on Friday says.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a
phone call on Friday to "put an end to the flow of military goods, military
advisers and armed personnel over the border".
III.
http://news.yahoo.com/12-russian-armored-vehicles-join-aid-convoy-073246864.html
Russia denies its vehicles destroyed in Ukraine
By ALEXANDER ROSLYAKOV and JIM HEINTZ 18 hours ago
KAMENSK-SHAKHTINSKY, Russia (AP) -- NATO on Friday said a Russian military
column ventured overnight into Ukraine, and the Ukrainian president said
his forces destroyed most of it. Russia denied all of this, but the reports
spooked global markets and overshadowed optimism driven by agreement over a
Russian aid convoy bound for eastern Ukraine.
Related Stories
Russian aid convoy waits near Ukraine Associated Press
Kiev says forces shelled Russian armour inside Ukraine Reuters
[$$] EU Foreign Ministers Say Russia May Face Tougher Sanctions The
Wall Street Journal
Ukraine, Russia parry over Russian aid convoy Associated Press
Russian assures Hagel on Ukrainian relief Associated Press
The White House said it was looking into what it called unconfirmed reports
that Ukraine's security forces disabled vehicles in a Russian military
convoy inside Ukraine.
The Russian aid convoy of more than 250 trucks has been a source of
tensions since it set off from Moscow on Tuesday. Kiev and the West were
suspicious that the mission could be a pretext for a Russian military
incursion into eastern Ukraine, where government forces are battling
pro-Russia separatists and clawing back rebel-held territory.
Throughout the eastern crisis that erupted in April, there have been
consistent allegations that Russia is fomenting or directing the rebellion.
Moscow rejects the allegations and the high-profile aid convoy could be
aimed, in part, at portraying Russia as interested in cooling the conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to cultivate that perception in a
Thursday speech in which he said Russia hopes for peace in Ukraine.
It was not clear what Russia could hope to gain by sending in a military
column while world attention was trained on its efforts to get the aid
convoy into eastern Ukraine.
But some foreign journalists reported that Russian armored personnel
carriers were seen crossing into Ukraine on Thursday night. On Friday, a
statement on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's website said "the given
information was trustworthy and confirmed because the majority of the
vehicles were destroyed by Ukrainian artillery at night."
NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen also confirmed that Russian
military vehicles had entered Ukraine, but he gave no specifics.
In Moscow, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry insisted that no
Russian military vehicles were destroyed because none had crossed into
Ukraine. Yet Britain said it summoned Russian Ambassador Alexander
Yakovenko in to clarify reports of the Russian incursion.
In Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said
the U.S. government is working to gather more information about the
reports. She said the U.S. remains concerned about repeated Russian and
Russian-supported incursions into Ukraine.
Markets sold off heavily Friday, spooked by thought of Ukrainian troops
engaging with Russia forces inside Ukraine. Germany's DAX, which had been
trading over 1 percent higher, ended the day 1.4 percent lower.
View gallery
Ukraine conflict refugees
Drivers of a Russian convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine
show the contents of the ...
The crossing reportedly took place near the southern Russian town where the
aid trucks have been parked, awaiting permission to go into Ukraine.
After days of controversy, Russia nominally consented to let Ukrainian
officials inspect the convoy while it was still on Russian soil and agreed
that the Red Cross would distribute the goods in Ukraine's region of
Luhansk.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said Russian Defense Minister Sergei
Shoygu "guaranteed" Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday that no Russian
troops are involved in the transport of humanitarian relief supplies to
eastern Ukraine.
In their first telephone conversation since late April, Shoygu assured
Hagel that the Russian convoy "was not to be used as a pretext to further
intervene in Ukraine," according to the spokesman, Navy Rear Adm. John
Kirby. Kirby did not mention whether the two discussed Ukraine's claim that
it had attacked Russian military convoy vehicles.
Laurent Corbaz, the International Committee of the Red Cross' director of
operations in Europe, described a tentative plan in which the trucks would
enter Ukraine with a single Russian driver each -- as opposed to the current
crew of several people in each truck -- accompanied by a Red Cross worker.
In line with Red Cross policy, there would be no military escort, he said.
However, some Russian military vehicles near the aid convoy were seen
Friday carrying a Russian acronym standing for "peacekeeping forces" -- a
signal that Moscow was considering a possible military escort.
Germany, meanwhile, said Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Putin to end the
flow of military goods and personnel into Ukraine ahead of a weekend
meeting of foreign ministers aimed at easing tensions.
Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said the two leaders spoke Friday evening
ahead of a meeting Sunday between the Russian, Ukrainian, German and French
foreign ministers in Berlin.
He said Merkel urged Putin to de-escalate the situation "and in particular
put an end to the flow of military goods, military advisers and armed
personnel over the border into Ukraine."
The fighting in eastern Ukraine has claimed nearly 2,100 lives, half of
those in the last few weeks as the Ukrainian troops regained more and more
rebel-held territory. It began in April, a month after Russia annexed
Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
The eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk has suffered extensively from an
intense military barrage over the last few weeks. The city remains cut off
from power and water supplies, and its mobile and landline telephone
systems barely function, local authorities said Friday. Little food is
available but bread is still being made using portable generators.
Ukraine, meanwhile, proceeded with its own aid mission to the Luhansk area.
Trucks sent from the eastern city of Kharkiv were unloaded Friday at
warehouses in the town of Starobilsk, where the goods were to be sorted and
transported further by the Red Cross. Starobilsk is 100 kilometers (60
miles) north of Luhansk.
Other Ukrainian aid was taken to the town of Lysychansk, which retaken by
Ukrainian forces late last month but has seen sporadic clashes until
earlier this week.
Dozens of houses showed signs of damage Friday in Lysychansk -- some had
windows blown out, while others had been blasted or burned to the ground.
An Associated Press reporter saw small children playing in the rubble of
one destroyed house.
As Ukrainian emergency workers discussed how to distribute the aid,
clusters of older women and small children began appearing on the town's
streets. Residents said the aid was the first they had seen since fighting
had ended.
___
Heintz reported from Kiev, Ukraine. Peter Leonard in Kiev; Vitnija Saldava
in Lysychansk, Ukraine; Lynn Berry and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow; Karl
Ritter in Stockholm; Geir Moulson in Berlin and Danica Kirka and Pan Pylas
in London contributed to this report.
--
Peace Is Doable
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