On Monday, a resident of Novoazovsk in Southeastern Ukraine said she saw a column of armored vehicles approach the town and being shooting, according to Reuters.
"It all started at 8 this morning, tanks appeared, no fewer than seven of them," the woman, who gave her name only as Lyudmila, told Reuters by telephone. "Right now I can hear rumbling, explosions ... the residents are hiding."
The armored column that appeared on Monday in the far Southastern corner of Ukraine, where it abuts the Russian border, was unusual because the spot was far removed from any territory held by the separatists, according to Reuters.
It was therefore difficult to see how the column could have appeared in Ukraine without having come across the Russian border, unless it made an amphibious landing from the nearby Azov Sea, which is improbable given the number of heavy vehicles witnesses said they saw, Reuters reported.
Ukrainian officials said the column was an incursion by Russian troops which it alleges are fighting alongside pro-Moscow separatists, a claim Russia quickly dismissed as disinformation, according to Reuters.
Since the five-month conflict over eastern Ukraine, Ukraine and Western forces blame Russia for aiding rebels and Russia denies all claims, Reuters reported. With the battlefield mostly too dangerous for reporters to safely move around, verifying who is doing what is usually impossible.
It was not possible to establish whether the people driving the column and firing the artillery were Russian soldiers or separatist rebels, but there were strong indications that whoever was doing it operated out of Russian territory, something very unlikely to have happened without Moscow's consent, according to Reuters.
The question of Russian involvement is at the core of Western governments' response to the Ukraine crisis, and could be crucial to how the conflict plays out, Reuters reported.
The European Union and United States have already imposed sanctions on Russia in part based on allegations Moscow is arming the rebels, according to Reuters. The West has warned of more sanctions if Russia provides further help.
