U.S. official says 1,000 Russian troops enter Ukraine
By Victoria Butenko, Laura Smith-Spark and Diana Magnay, CNN
updated 10:17 AM EDT, Thu August 28, 2014
Kiev, Ukraine (CNN)Â -- A top Ukrainian army officer said a "full-scale invasion" of his country was under way Thursday, as a U.S. official said up to 1,000 Russian troops had crossed Ukraine's southern border to fight alongside pro-Russian rebels.
U.S. officials said Russian troops were directly involved in the latest fighting, despite Moscow's denials.
Rebels backed by Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers fought Ukrainian forces on two fronts Thursday: southeast of rebel-held Donetsk, and along the nation's southern coast in the town of Novoazovsk, about 12 miles (20 km) from the Russian border, according to Mykhailo Lysenko, the deputy commander of the Ukrainian Donbas battalion.
"This is a full-scale invasion," Lysenko said, referring to the fighting in the south. Â Intelligence now indicates that up to 1,000 Russian troops have moved into southern Ukraine with heavy weapons and are fighting there, a U.S. official told CNN Thursday.
Ukraine's National Defense and Security Council said that Russian forces were in full control of Novoazovsk as of Wednesday afternoon.
Russia's military fired Grad rockets into the town and its suburbs before sending in two convoys of tanks and armored personnel carriers from Russia's Rostov region, it said in a statement
"Ukrainian troops were ordered to pull out to save their lives. By late afternoon both Russian convoys had entered the town. Ukraine is now fortifying nearby Mariupol to the west," the NDSC said.
A number of villages in the Novoazovsk, Starobeshiv and Amvrosiiv districts were also seized, it said.
The NDSC also warned that a rebel counterattack is expected in the area where Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in July. Ukrainian and Western officials believe it was downed by rebels armed with Russian-made weapons.
Novoazovsk is strategically important because it lies on the main road leading from the Russian border to Ukraine's Crimea region, which Russia annexed in March. Separatist leaders in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions then declared independence from Kiev.
U.N. Security Council to meet
As international concern mounted over the apparent escalation in fighting, Lithuania requested an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine.
UK ambassador to the United Nations Mark Lyall Grant said Russia would be asked to explain why its soldiers are in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk had earlier called for the U.N. meeting, as well as action by Europe.
The latest flare-up comes despite a meeting between Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Belarus on Tuesday at which some progress appeared to have been made toward finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
