Tensions have ramped up after Russia for the first time admitted that its troops had crossed onto Ukrainian soil after Kiev released footage purporting to show 10 Russian soldiers captured on its territory.
A Moscow military source claimed they had crossed into Ukraine “by accident”.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian leader Vladimir Putin were meeting in Minsk with top EU officials and the leaders of Kazakhstan and Belarus in a bid to defuse the conflict some fear could trigger all-out war between Kiev and its former Soviet master Moscow.
Poroshenko told Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko that “peace is the priority” ahead of the group meeting.
But, in a sign of how high tensions are, it remained unclear if he would meet one-on-one with Putin at the imposing Independence Palace in the Belarussian capital.
Pressure soared after Kiev’s security service said on Sunday that paratroopers from Russia’s 98th airborne division had been captured by Ukrainian forces about 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk.
A seating chart released by Moscow indicates the talks will take place at a huge oval table, with Putin separated from Poroshenko by Kazakhstan’s leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and his aides.
A Kremlin official in Minsk told AFP on condition of anonymity that a meeting involving EU officials will determine whether a sensitive one-on-one between Putin and Poroshenko would take place.
Soldiers captured
Ukrainian media on Tuesday aired footage purporting to show captured Russian solders confessing to crossing into Ukraine in armoured convoys.
“We travelled here in columns, not along the roads but across the fields,” says one of the men, who identifies himself as corporal Ivan Milchakov from the 331st parachute regiment based in central Russia.
“I didn’t even see when we crossed the border.”
A Russian defence ministry source on Tuesday said the captured soldiers had crossed into Ukraine accidentally.
The soldiers had been “taking part in patrolling a section of the Russian-Ukrainian border. They crossed it most likely by accident, on an unequipped, unmarked section”, Russian news agencies quoted the source as saying.
Kiev has long accused Moscow of stoking the separatist insurgency raging in its east — charges the Kremlin has repeatedly denied — but this is the first time it has claimed to have captured Russian soldiers on Ukrainian soil.
“Officially, they are at exercises in various corners of Russia. In reality, they are participating in military aggression against Ukraine”, Defence Minister Valeriy Geletey said on his Facebook page.
On the ground there appeared no end in sight to the four months of conflict that has already claimed some 2,200 lives and has plunged relations between Russia and the West to levels not seen since the end of the Cold War in 1991.
Peace talks?
Ukraine’s forces accused Russian troops of trying to open a “new front” after an armoured convoy crossed onto government-held territory Monday in the south of Donetsk region.
AFP journalists reported shelling in Novoazovsk, a town on the coast of the Azov sea, and had to briefly take shelter in the basement of the City Hall together with the mayor.
Ukraine also accused Russian army helicopters of launching a ferocious missile attack on a Ukrainian border position further to the north, killing four border guards and bringing the death toll to 12 soldiers in the past 24 hours.
Local authorities in the main rebel bastion of Donetsk said three civilians were killed in shelling overnight as the army pummels insurgent fighters.
The rebels previously announced the launch of a counter-offensive after losing swathes of territory to a push by government forces.
Officials from the EU and Russian-led Customs Union were set to discuss the crisis and trade issues after Ukraine’s new pro-Western leaders signed a landmark deal with the European Union in June that riled Russia.
The refusal by Kiev’s former president Viktor Yanukovych to ink the EU deal last year in favour of Moscow’s economic bloc sparked the protests that eventually led to his ouster and sparked a chain of events that saw Russia annex Ukraine’s Crimea region and sparked the pro-Moscow insurgency.
As Ukraine’s political transition continues, Poroshenko on Monday announced long-awaited early parliamentary elections for October 26.
The Kremlin also ratcheted up the pressure by announcing plans to send another aid convoy into eastern Ukraine “this week”.
Russia unilaterally sent about 230 lorries carrying what it claimed was 1,800 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the rebel-held city of Lugansk on Friday after accusing Kiev of intentionally delaying the mission.
Kiev condemned the move as a “direct invasion”.
Some 400,000 people have fled their homes since April in fighting that has left residents in some besieged rebel-held cities without water or power for weeks.
Source: Prothom Alo