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Ukraine crisis: Kiev says troops destroyed Russian vehicle, border officials begin inspection of aid convoy from Moscow
As usual the whole story is strange and it's difficult to know what is really going on.
Did Ukraine Attack Its Own Tanks? White House "Can't Confirm Russian Convoy Was Destroyed By Kiev"
Ukraine says its forces have attacked and partly destroyed a Russian armoured column that entered Ukrainian territory, a firefight which, if confirmed, would mark a dramatic worsening of the conflict.
However, Russia's government denied its forces had crossed into Ukraine, and accused Kiev of trying to sabotage deliveries of aid, but European capitals accused the Kremlin of escalating the fighting.
Kiev and its Western allies have in the past repeatedly accused Russia of arming pro-Moscow separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, and of sending undercover military units onto Ukrainian soil.
If Ukraine can for the first time show the remains of Russian military vehicles captured or destroyed on its territory, that would give extra force to Kiev's allegations - and possibly spark a new round of sanctions against the Kremlin.
Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, said Kiev's forces had picked up a Russian military column crossing the border under the cover of darkness.
"Appropriate actions were undertaken and a part of it no longer exists," Mr 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 Mr Poroshenko's office.
As usual the whole story is strange and it's difficult to know what is really going on.
Did Ukraine Attack Its Own Tanks? White House "Can't Confirm Russian Convoy Was Destroyed By Kiev"
While today's trading session was marked by news which at first blush correlated with what may be the 2014 equivalent of the Archduke Ferdinand shooting, in retrospect the newsflow made painfully little sense. Let's recap:
Yesterday afternoon, two UK reporters working for the Guardian and Telegraph, supposedly located by the border in east Ukraine, reported that they were "eyewitnesses" as a convoy of military trucks crossed the Russian border into the breakaway Donetsk republic, aka Ukraine. While there have been photos of the military truck that have accompanied the Russian humantiarian convoy on Russian territory, there has so far been no proof, aside from said eyewitness reports, confirming Russian military vehicles entered or were in Ukraine.
This morning Ukraine military’s spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, shocked the world when newswire reported that Ukraine forces had attacked an armed convoy from Russia, and "destroyed" a part of it. This was subsequently reiterated by the president of Ukraine himself who said that "the given information was trustworthy and confirmed because the majority of that machines had been eliminated by the Ukrainian artillery at night", and by the secretary-general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said that the alliance had detected an “incursion” of vehicles from Russia last night, adding that “what we have seen last night is the continuation of what we have seen for some time." Alas, as in the case above, just more verbal reports, with zero actual evidence.
Shortly thereafter, Russia responded when the Russian defense ministry said that there was no Russian military column that crossed into Eastern Ukraine, and that the above reports are based on "some fantasies."
This is where the breakdown of logic occurs, because for Russia to make such a formal statement it clearly implies that Russia believes there is no evidence of destruction of a Russian convoy in Ukraine territory, something which obviously would exist if indeed as Ukraine's president had claimed, the "majority of the machines had been eliminated."