Comment: The Washington Post presstitutes must think that their audience is truly stupid if they attempt to sell a "Russian invasion" out of thin air. Or they are themselves THAT stupid and they actually believe what their puppet-masters tell them to print, despite all the evidence:
OSCE repeats: 'There are no Russian troops or military equipment in Ukraine' - Poroshenko's telling porkies
These are NATO's satellite images "proving" the "Russian invasion". See them Russians down there? Wave and say, ะฟัะธะฒะตั!
The two Russian columns, including tanks and armored fighting vehicles, entered the town of Novoazovsk on the Sea of Azov after a battle in which Ukrainian army positions came under fire from Grad rockets launched from Russian territory, according to the spokesman, Col. Andriy Lysenko.
"Our border servicemen and guardsmen retreated as they did not have heavy equipment," Lysenko said in a statement.
Ukrainian authorities have denounced the latest fighting as a Russian invasion of their territory, intended to prop up pro-Moscow separatists who have been losing ground to Ukrainian forces and to open a new front in the southeastern corner of Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said earlier that Ukrainian troops were battling combined Russian and separatist forces on the new southern front around Novoazovsk, about eight miles west of the Russian border. The Ukrainian military also said Russian troops were increasing surveillance from northern Crimea, the autonomous Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in March.
Buttressing the Ukrainian accounts, NATO released satellite images Thursday of what it said were Russian artillery, vehicles and troops in and around eastern Ukraine. One image showed what NATO officials said was a convoy with self-propelled artillery in the area of Krasnodon, inside territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists on Aug. 21.
Lysenko said Thursday that two columns of Russian troops, tanks and artillery began entering Ukraine from Russian territory around 12:30 p.m. "Russian servicemen" also control several other localities around Novoazovsk, he said. There have been reports of a Russian BM-27 Uragan missile system in the area, Lysenko said, aggravating a situation that has become "more complicated" in the last 24 hours.
Ukrainian forces have begun fortifying positions around Mariupol, a key port city 28 miles west of Novoazovsk, in anticipation that Russia could be trying to secure a road link to annexed Crimea.
Over the past week, separatist rebels in the Luhansk region have been replaced by regular Russian troops, Lysenko said. In addition, Russian medical personnel and equipment arrived at a hospital in Krasnodon, close to the Russian border about 30 miles southeast of Luhansk, "after which wounded and killed mercenaries were mass-delivered to the hospital," he said.
"The presence of doctors from the neighboring country on terrorist-controlled territory is yet another piece of evidence to the fact that regular Russian servicemen are involved in the conflict," the spokesman said. He cited a "Mothers Committee" of Russian soldiers as saying that about 400 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine so far during the Russian intervention.
British Prime Minister David Cameron warned Thursday of unspecified "consequences" if Russia does not end its "large-scale incursions" into southeastern Ukraine.
"The international community has already warned Russia that such provocative actions would be completely unacceptable and illegal," he said in a statement. Russian President Vladimir Putin's stated willingness to resolve the conflict peacefully "is not credible when Russia is supporting pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine with arms and troops," he said. "Such activity must cease immediately."
Firefights and shelling continued all day Wednesday and into the night around Novoazovsk, after Russian-backed separatists and Russian troops took control of villages north of the formerly quiet town, Lysenko said.
Referring to a "Russian-directed counteroffensive," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday: "Clearly, that is of deep concern to us, but we're also concerned by the Russian government's unwillingness to tell the truth, even as its soldiers are found 30 miles inside Ukraine."
Widespread reports of Russian troop movements and fighting in Ukraine provoked renewed criticism from NATO, whose secretary general said in an interview with British reporters Wednesday that it will deploy forces at new bases in eastern Europe for the first time in response to the Ukraine crisis and to deter Putin, according to the Guardian newspaper.
"We have reports from multiple sources showing quite a lively Russian involvement in destabilizing eastern Ukraine," Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. "We have seen artillery firing across the border and also inside Ukraine. We have seen a Russian military buildup along the border. Quite clearly, Russia is involved in destabilizing eastern Ukraine. .โ.โ. You see a sophisticated combination of traditional conventional warfare mixed up with information and primarily disinformation operations. It will take more than NATO to counter such hybrid warfare effectively."
Moscow will consider the activity of NATO forces near Russia's borders in its own military planning, Russia's envoy to NATO told the Interfax news agency Thursday.
"Obviously, we will take into consideration the configuration and activity of the NATO forces at the Russian borders in our military planning, and will take all that is necessary to reliably provide security and to ensure safety against any threats," envoy Alexander Grushko told Interfax.
German leader Angela Merkel demanded an explanation from Putin for the Russian troop movements, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported. The conversation between the two leaders took place as fighting intensified, the BBC reported.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he has canceled his working visit to Turkey due to a "sharp aggravation" of the situation in the east, "as Russian troops were brought into Ukraine."
Europe's security agency, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, has called an emergency meeting in Vienna on Ukraine, the BBC reported.
NATO's Canadian delegation also posted a snarky map on its Twitter account with outlines of the countries titled "Russia" and "Not Russia" - a stab at Russian assertions that 10 paratroopers captured in Ukraine earlier this week wandered into the country by mistake.
A spokesman for Putin, Dmitry Peskov, brushed aside NATO's criticism in an interview with Russian reporters Wednesday, according to Interfax.
"It's not a new declaration. They do this regularly and Russia regularly repeats its denial, declaring that this information doesn't correspond with reality," Peskov said.
Peskov also said that Russia planned to send a humanitarian convoy back into Ukraine, after days of intense negotiation over the last convoy of around 220 trucks that entered the country without permission or the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross last Friday. The trucks were purportedly used to bring food and relief supplies to besieged residents near Luhansk, one of two rebel strongholds in the east.
"A second humanitarian convoy can be sent very soon. The Russian side is ready to do it tomorrow, so long as this operation, like last time, will happen under the auspices of the ICRC and total interaction with the Ukrainian authorities, though we can't give a specific date," Peskov said.
The increased fighting came after Tuesday's meeting between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, who exchanged a chilly handshake at a regional summit and pledged some cooperation in the ongoing crisis. Putin and Poroshenko spent more than two hours in a private meeting Tuesday and, afterward, pledged cooperation on tightening Ukraine's eastern border and humanitarian relief for besieged residents in battleground cities.
Yet even as both leaders gave lip service to the idea of peace, verbal sniping on both sides continued - as reports of Russian tanks and soldiers on the ground grew. At his news briefing Wednesday, Lysenko showed a new video of most of the Russian paratroopers. The deputy commander of the men said they had "illegally come into the territory of Ukraine" for what they thought was a military exercise and were captured and detained.
Ukrainian authorities on Thursday let the captured paratroopers call their mothers from a prison in Kiev to say they are in good condition and to provide a phone number for the mothers to call to get details on how to fly to the Ukrainian capital to retrieve their sons, some of the mothers said in Kostroma, Russia.
However, they said, Russian officials told them not to go, warning that the invitation was a trap of some sort.
This is just getting f***ing ridiculous. Drink the MSM kool-aid everyone, made from 100% unfiltered bullshit - it has electrolytes!