Ukraine claims to have headed off Russian troops

UKRAINE said yesterday that it had headed off an attempt by Russia to send troops, in the guise of peacekeepers, into Ukraine with the aim of provoking a large-scale military conflict, a statement Moscow dismissed as a “fairy tale”.

Ukraine has made several similar statements about Russian aggression during months of conflict with separatists on its eastern border with Russia. It has claimed the separatists are backed by Moscow, but these claims have not been independently verified. A senior aide to Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said a large Russian military convoy had been heading for the border on Friday under a supposed agreement with the Red Cross, but had stopped after an appeal by Kiev to Russia.

It was not immediately clear what convoy Poroshenko’s aide was referring to.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Friday it had finished military exercises in southern Russia, near the Ukrainian border, exercises which the United States had criticised as provocative.

“A huge military convoy, accompanied by Russian soldiers and equipment, was moving towards the Ukrainian border, allegedly by agreement with the Red Cross,” said Valery Chaly, deputy head of Poroshenko’s administration.

No one at the Red Cross was immediately available to comment.

“A humanitarian column with ‘peacekeepers’ was to enter the territory of Ukraine, clearly to provoke a full-scale conflict,” he said, according to Ukraine’s presidential press service. Chaly said Poroshenko held urgent talks with his security chiefs and world leaders, though he did not specify which ones. Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said separately he had called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, who had assured him the convoy would be stopped.

“As of now, the danger of provocation has been removed, but operational staff continue to work,” Chaly said.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, dismissed the statement by Chaly as untrue.