Russia\u2019s Security Service (FSB) has denied reports that the country\u2019s troops have crossed the border into Ukraine. Border guards have been deployed to provide security near the frontier, but they operate only on the Russian side, the FSB said.<\/p>\n
The mobile military teams \u201coperate strictly within the territory of the Russian Federation,\u201d a spokesperson for the FSB Border Guard Service in Rostov region told RT on Friday.<\/p>\n
Russia has stepped up security measures on its border with Ukraine as local residents are under constant threat because of \u201cregular cross-border shelling\u201d and an increased number of \u201cmass border crossings\u201d by the Ukrainian military, he explained. For that reason, FSB mobile border guards\u2019 teams have been created.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen residents report about cross-border shooting and fighting in the frontier zone, these teams are immediately deployed to such areas to provide the safety of the Russian state border and Russian citizens, and also to prevent armed people from crossing into the territory of the Russian Federation,\u201d Sinitsyn said.<\/p>\n
Earlier, several foreign news agencies caused quite a stir, reporting that a convoy of Russian military vehicles had crossed into Ukraine overnight.<\/p>\n
The reports triggered criticism from NATO and some European states.<\/p>\n
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen referred to the alleged incident as to \u201ca Russian incursion\u201d that they \u201csaw.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLast night we saw a Russian incursion, a crossing of the Ukrainian border,\u201d he said Friday, adding that \u201cit is a clear demonstration of continued Russian involvement in the destabilization of eastern Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he was \u201cvery alarmed by the reports.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course the humanitarian convoy itself is a separate issue, but if there any Russian military personnel or vehicles in eastern Ukraine they need to be withdrawn immediately or the consequences could be very serious,\u201d he told reporters in Brussels, where European Union foreign ministers had gathered for an emergency meeting to discuss crises in Ukraine and Iraq.<\/p>\n
In an article published by The Guardian, reporter Shaun Walker said he \u201csaw a column of 23 armored personnel carriers, supported by fuel trucks and other logistics vehicles with official Russian military plates, traveling [toward] the border near the Russian town of Donetsk.\u201d Late on Thursday the convoy \u201ccrossed into Ukrainian territory,\u201d he said. However, no photographic or video evidence of the incident was presented either in his article or in his Twitter feed. The photograph published with the text was taken on Russian territory.<\/p>\n
The Telegraph also reported that \u201cat least 23\u201d Russian vehicles had crossed into Ukraine. The report is accompanied by a video also filmed on Russian territory.<\/p>\n
Source: RT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russia\u2019s Security Service (FSB) has denied reports that the country\u2019s troops have crossed the border into Ukraine. Border guards have been deployed to provide security near the frontier, but they operate only on the Russian side, the FSB said. The mobile military teams \u201coperate strictly within the territory of the Russian Federation,\u201d a spokesperson for … Continue reading “No Russian troops crossed into Ukraine”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[9709,9710,66,7484],"class_list":["post-15220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-fsb","tag-humanitarian-convoy","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15221,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15220\/revisions\/15221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}