Russia accuses Ukraine of infiltration; Kiev says Moscow creates fake incidents

Ukraine’s military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Pavlo Kovalchuk, said no such incident had occurred. “It never existed,” he said. Another Ukrainian official said it reminded him of the alleged shelling of Soviet forces by Finland in Manila, something that was a made-up attack that triggered the Soviet invasion of that nation in 1939.

Kiev says it is no longer conducting an offensive as some 190,000 Russian troops have largely occupied Ukraine’s borders and are withdrawing to avoid giving Moscow any excuse to attack .

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba tweeted on Monday: “Russia, now shut down your fake manufacturing factory.”

Also on Monday, a Russian-established leader from an isolated part of eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region claimed – without offering evidence – that Kiev had launched an offensive and said it was seeking financial and military aid from Moscow. Will welcome

The shelling along the ceasefire line separating Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Donbass from Russian-established administrations has increased in recent days amid US warnings of an imminent Russian offensive. A major power station in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Shachstia ceased operations on Monday due to damage from Russian artillery, according to local officials.

While Russia has aided and armed the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk since the Donbas conflict in 2014, it has long insisted that its own armed forces are not directly involved in the fighting – which killed some 14,000 people. Has claimed lives – a claim ridiculed by Kiev and the West.

If Moscow openly enters the fighting in the Donbass, its enormous advantage in aviation and missiles could allow its forces to punch through Ukrainian defenses and potentially encircle some of the Ukrainian military’s best combat units.

Eduard Basurin, one of the leaders of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, said on Russian TV on Monday, “Military assistance is needed in different directions.”

Russia has not officially commented on this request. President Vladimir Putin is holding an emergency session of the country’s Security Council on Monday, according to the Kremlin.

According to the Kremlin, developments in the Donbass came hours after Mr Putin agreed after talks with French leader Emmanuel Macron to continue diplomatic talks on Ukraine, including a possible meeting with President Biden.

Moscow wants Ukraine to implement the so-called Minsk-2 agreements, signed in 2015 following the passage of Ukrainian forces in the Donbass. In the Kremlin’s interpretation, rejected by Ukraine, the agreement could give Russia’s proxy in the Donbass a veto over Ukraine’s national. affairs, preventing the country’s alignment with the West.

Russian-established authorities in Donetsk said Sunday that several civilians and soldiers were killed and wounded by Ukrainian fire, and released footage of what they said was a severed leg of a Ukrainian saboteur who was trying to plant a bomb. Had an accident while trying.

He also said that Ukrainian forces tried to break through the front lines moving towards the Russian border along the Azov Sea coast on Monday morning. Ukraine dismissed the allegations as a propaganda campaign.

Russia also said on Monday that a Ukrainian shell struck a border post in its southern Rostov region, destroying a building. According to Moscow, no one was hurt in the incident.

Ukraine said its forces were too far from the area adjacent to a part of the Russian-controlled Donbass, and did not fire in that direction.

Ukraine’s national security adviser Oleksiy Danilov said: “They are looking for Casas Bailey. But the Russian Federation’s desire to incite us to launch an active operation will fail.”

Lieutenant Colonel Kovalchuk said that Russian-backed forces are deliberately destroying civilian infrastructure in their territory to increase hostilities.

“Our position and the Russian border have been temporarily separated from the occupied territories, and our artillery is currently drawn into the rear of our positions,” he said. “It will be absolutely impossible for us to shoot in the temporarily occupied territories. All the way to Rostov.”