View Photo Gallery: Russia vows to send another humanitarian aid convoy into Ukraine: As Ukraine charges that Russian forces crossed into the country with tanks and other military vehicles, Russia says it plans a second humanitarian aid convoy.
7:39 AM
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine said Tuesday its forces detained a group of Russian paratroopers who crossed the border into eastern Ukraine, and the U.S. ambassador to Kiev warned of a possible “Russian-directed counteroffensive” by pro-Moscow separatists, raising tensions between the two countries ahead of a planned meeting between their presidents at a regional summit.
In a briefing Tuesday, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said the Ukrainian army detained 10 Russian paratroopers in the Donetsk region, scene of some of the heaviest fighting with separatist rebels in the east. The spokesman said the Russians were detained with their documents and weapons and had provided statements.
In Moscow, news agencies quoted a Russian defense official as saying the soldiers had crossed the border by accident and surrendered to Ukrainian forces without attempting to resist.
The incident came a day after Ukraine accused Russian forces of carrying out a cross-border foray into southeastern Ukraine with tanks and armored personnel carriers.
The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, said in a Twitter posting late Monday: “The new columns of Russian tanks and armor crossing into Ukraine indicates a Russian directed counter offensive may be underway.”
Separately, White House national security adviser Susan E. Rice tweeted that “Russia’s military incursions into Ukraine” — which she said include artillery, air defense systems, dozens of tanks and military personnel — “represent significant escalation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, along with other European leaders, will attend a summit Tuesday in Minsk, Belarus, to discuss the five-month-old conflict, which has left some 2,000 people dead, as well as other trade and regional issues. It will be the first face-to-face meeting of the two leaders since June.
It appeared doubtful, however, that any headway toward a peace agreement would be made, and the alleged Russian incursion into southeastern Ukraine — which Moscow denied — showed how difficult it will be for Ukraine to reestablish control over its own territory.
According to Lysenko, the detained Russian soldiers said that on Aug. 23 they took a train to the Rostov region in Russia and joined “a march” around 3 a.m. the following day in a column of dozens of armored personnel carriers. The soldiers said that only the commanders knew they were going into Ukraine. The soldiers thought they were going for military training.
Lysenko showed one of several interrogation videostaken of the soldiers. A paratrooper named Sergei Smirnov said he was a “contractor” in the Russian army who had come to Ukraine “for training.”
He said on the video that he did not know he was in Ukraine until “we went through a village and saw a Ukrainian tank.” In a few moments, the tank had begun firing on their vehicle, he said.
Asked about the assertion by Russian officials that the troops had accidentally crossed the border, Lysenko said: “If elite troops do not know topography and do not know their locality, I can say nothing about that. The armed forces, the generals sent people to the east of Ukraine. We believe that was not a mistake.” Rather, he said, it was “a special task executed.”
The soldiers have been “detained” but are not prisoners, Lysenko said. Ukraine has launched a criminal investigation into their activities.
Lysenko also said that for the first time since the conflict began, Ukrainian border guards were allegedly shot Monday by two military Russian helicopters. Four border guards died and three were injured, he said. The incident occurred when Russian Mi-24 helicopters attacked a border post in the Luhansk region on Monday, Lysenko said.
Although Russian-backed separatists are losing ground on the battlefield, Russian actions on their behalf remain a constant threat along the two countries’ long border.
Monday’s column of military vehicles appeared near the Sea of Azov, well to the south of the rebel-held city of Donetsk. It came just days after Russia sent a convoy of humanitarian aid trucks — whose purpose, even now, is murky — into Ukrainian territory, provoking international condemnation. The Russian government said Monday that it would send a second convoy despite the chaos and condemnation the first had wrought.
The bold moves in recent days have complicated the already tense situation in Ukraine, as well as raising doubts about any quickly negotiated resolution of the conflict.
Russian officials had raised the possibility that Putin and Poroshenko could hold a private bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit, and both sides have expressed hopes for peace, to varying degrees.
But if the two leaders do speak privately, lingering suspicions and accusations surrounding Russia’s recent actions at and across the Ukrainian border are likely to complicate the greater discussion about Ukraine’s future.
The summit was set to talk about free-trade issues between the two countries in light of Ukraine’s pending affiliation with the European Union, but it likely will be consumed by the war. At the bargaining table, Russia wants recognition of its annexation of Crimea, rights for Russian-speaking minorities and a cease-fire; Ukraine wantsCrimea returned, tighter borders and an end to the uprising in eastern Ukraine.
Keith Darden, a Ukraine expert and associate professor at American University, said Russia’s military incursions have been a demonstration of force as Moscow pushes for a federalized Ukraine — with autonomy granted to the regions. That demand is anathema to Poroshenko’s government. Moscow also insists that Ukraine make no agreement with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
“I think with the escalation we’ve seen in the last 24 hours, they’re not intending to wind it down; they’re continuing a strategy in which they’re trying to enfeeble the Ukrainian government until it collapses on its own. Diplomacy isn’t going to pull a rabbit out of a hat this week,” Darden said.
Poroshenko — a billionaire who took office in June — complicated matters on the eve of the summit by announcing via Twitter that he was dissolving the parliament in advance of elections scheduled for later this fall in an attempt to get a more like-minded legislature. The president noted in a statement that it would be impossible to win a war with a legislative body that could barely agree on whether the separatists were terrorists.
The timing of his announcement was not expected, but parliament had prepared for new elections when two parties agreed in July to withdraw their support for the government.
The question of Ukraine’s relations with Europe sparked the protests that began in November after then-President Viktor Yanukovych backed off a plan to sign an association agreement with the European Union. In February, as clashes between protesters and police grew deadly, Yanukovych fled to Russia.
Almost immediately, Russia moved to seize Crimea, and in the spring a pro-Russian separatist movement gained steam in the east.
Since then, Ukraine has regularly accused Russia of supporting and even driving the separatist uprising, with cross-border incursions and shelling. The conflict, coupled with the downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight in July over rebel-held territory, resulted in a chill between Russia and the West not seen since the Cold War.
Steven Pifer, who was U.S. ambassador to Ukraine during the Clinton administration, said the success or failure of the summit will depend a great deal on “what kind of attitude Putin walks into the meeting with.” Clever diplomats ought to be able to assemble a package of concessions on trade and natural resources that would enable Putin to “extract himself from this mess . . . if he wants a way out,” Pifer said.
Putin’s motives have grown more opaque as tensions have escalated sharply in recent days, following Russia’s dispatching into Ukraine the convoy of trucks — ostensibly bearing supplies for civilians in war-torn areas — without the Kiev government’s permission. On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced plans for a second convoy, even though the initial foray was characterized by Ukraine as a “direct invasion.”
On Monday, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Russian military vehicles flying separatist flags “violated the state border of Ukraine” near Novoazovsk in the southern part of the Donetsk region and engaged in firefights with Ukrainian forces. If true, it would be one of the first times that Russia had penetrated the Ukrainian border outside friendly rebel territory. Lavrov said he had not heard of the incursion and generally dismissed such accusations as “misinformation.”
One witness in the area, who asked not to be identified, said his village was awakened early Monday by the rumble of tanks coming from the east. He said residents ran to meet the soldiers, who were wearing camouflage, speaking Russian and politely asked for water and to borrow their local cellphones.
Yet even those fighting were wondering about the motives behind the sudden appearance of the tanks. Semyon Semenchenko, the commander of a pro-government volunteer battalion in the Donetsk region, called the situation a “small local invasion” and suggested in a television interview that the Russians may be trying to “put the pressure on our president” in advance of Tuesday’s meetings.
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