As Ukraine Officials Meet on Crisis, Rebel Claims Aid of Russian Troops

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Europe |As Ukraine Officials Meet on Crisis, Rebel Claims Aid of Russian Troops

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A member of a pro-Russian separatist militia walked by an unexploded rocket that fell in the backyard of a house on Thursday in Troitsko-Khartsyzsk, Ukraine. Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

MOSCOW â€” Asserting that Russian soldiers and armaments had crossed into Ukraine to support the separatists, President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine canceled a trip to Turkey on Thursday and warned his national security council that a panicked response would only further destabilize the situation.

â€œColumns of heavy artillery, huge loads of arms and regular Russian servicemen came to the territory of Ukraine from Russia through the uncontrolled border area,â€ Mr. Poroshenko said at the beginning of a meeting of the Ukrainian Nation Security and Defense Council in Kiev.

Mercenaries, along with regular servicemen, were trying to overrun positions held by the Ukrainian military, he said, according to a statement on his official website.

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â€œThe situation is certainly extremely difficult and nobody is going to simplify it,â€ Mr. Poroshenko said. â€œStill, it is controlled enough for us to refrain from panic.â€ Panic could be used as a weapon just like tanks, armored personnel carriers and rifles, he said.

President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine canceled a planned visit to Turkey on Thursday. Pool photo by Mikhail Palinchak

He spoke as NATO released satellite images to corroborate its accusations that Russian forces are actively involved in the Ukraine fighting. NATO also asserted that more than 1,000 Russian soldiers had joined the separatists battling the Ukrainian military.

Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the national security council, said that the Ukrainian military was planning a counteroffensive against the separatists and what he called â€œmore and more Russiansâ€ in the country, but declined to provide details about military plans. He also accused Russia of sending new antiaircraft defense systems into eastern Ukraine.

Separatists aided by Russia held the town of Novoazovsk, he said, with Ukrainian forces having retreated a day earlier. â€œThere was a regrouping of our troops to better protect Mariupol,â€ Colonel Lysenko said at a briefing in Kiev, saying the aim was to try to prevent the other side from penetrating the key southern city.

Russia officials continued to deny sending soldiers or weapons to Ukraine.

But the leader of the main separatist group in southeastern Ukraine said that up to 4,000 Russians, including active-duty soldiers currently on leave, had been fighting against Ukrainian government forces, Russian television reported.

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â€œThere are active soldiers fighting among us who preferred to spend their vacation not on the beach, but with us, among their brothers, who are fighting for their freedom,â€ Aleksandr Zakharchenko, a rebel commander and the prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk Peopleâ€™s Republic, said in an interview on Russian state-run television.

Mr. Zakharchenko said that between 3,000 and 4,000 Russians had fought in the separatist ranks since the conflict erupted in spring.

That assertion evaded the issue of direct Russian involvement by painting the soldiers as volunteers. It suggests, however, that Moscow still seeks to organize and to some extent control a force that could be operated at armâ€™s length with a backbone of local participation.

The statement that thousands of Russian soldiers have been involved in Ukraine increased tensions with the United States and the European Union, which have threatened harsher sanctions against Russia as a result of any military incursion. The leaders of both Britain and France were among those warning that the deployment of Russian troops in Ukraine was unacceptable and further measures would be contemplated.

At the same time, Ukraine and its Western allies have not responded to criticism that the Ukrainian tactics against the separatists have included the shelling of civilian areas in rebel strongholds, with the death toll exceeding 2,000, according to the United Nations.

Aleksandr Zakharchenko, a rebel commander and the prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, said on Thursday that Russians, including active-duty soldiers on leave, had been fighting against Ukrainian government forces. Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

The United Nations Security Council scheduled a special session on Ukraine for Thursday afternoon, and European leaders were planning to discuss the situation at a previously scheduled summit in Brussels on Saturday.

The interview with the separatist leader came against a backdrop of fighting in the strategic southern town of Novoazovsk, which sits along the southern land route from Russia to Crimea, which Russia annexed last March.

Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Moscow of opening a new southern front to relieve pressure on Donetsk and Luhansk farther north, where Ukrainian forces have besieged the separatists. Ukraineâ€™s military said the latest incursion from Russia had involved five armored personnel carriers as well as troops and weapons.

A separatist defeat in the heavily pro-Russian eastern part of Ukraine would deliver a significant domestic political blow to President Vladimir V. Putin and would weaken Moscowâ€™s leverage over Kiev.

But the confrontation in the south raised the specter for the first time in months of a direct confrontation between Ukrainian forces and its giant neighbor.

The latest updates to the current visual survey of the continuing dispute, with maps and satellite imagery showing rebel and military movement.

In eastern Ukraine, fighting intensified in cities and villages along the path of the forces advancing from the Russian border in the multipronged attack. The Ukrainian soldiers in the area southeast of Donetsk are now surrounded, as pro-Russian forces appear to control a road to the west.

The armored columns that captured Novoazovsk and now threaten Mariupol, far from the fighting around Luhansk and Donetsk, serve the separatist aim of diverting Ukrainian forces to deal with that new threat. Western analysts say the advance may also be the start of a ground offensive to seize Ukrainian territory for a land route connecting Russia to Crimea, the peninsula in southern Ukraine that Russia annexed in March.

Overnight Wednesday to Thursday, Ukrainian border guards on the other end of that potential land route engaged in a firefight with an armed group that tried to move into mainland Ukraine over the Crimean isthmus, Colonel Lysenko, the Ukrainian military spokesman said. He characterized the attackers as a Russian â€œsabotage-intelligenceâ€ unit. Off the coast in the Sea of Azov, a Ukrainian coast guard ship shot down a Russian drone near Mariupol, he said.

Mr. Zakharchenko, who says he has Ukrainian citizenship, took over as prime minister of the Donetsk Peopleâ€™s Republic this month, replacing Alexander Borodai, a Russian. Several other Russians who had figured prominently in the rebel ranks, including the military commander Igor Strelkov, have also dropped from sight in recent weeks.

In the interview with the official satellite channel Rossiya 24, Mr. Zakharchenko said many former professional Russian soldiers had come to Ukraine as volunteers, out of a sense of duty.

â€œThere were about 3,000 or 4,000 of them in our ranks,â€ Mr. Zakharchenko said. â€œMany of them have gone home, but the majority have remained here. Unfortunately, some have been killed.â€

Interviews this week with captured Russian soldiers in Ukraine, as well as news reports in independent Russian papers about burials of two paratroopers killed in combat, are raising new questions about the extent of Russian military involvement in Ukraine.