Russia is allegedly moving armored vehicles, combat troops and columns of military equipment into eastern Ukraine since the past two days, NATO's top commander said Wednesday.
The covert movement comes after a convoy of 43 unmarked green military trucks, including five towing Howitzer heavy artillery pieces and another five multi-launch rocket systems, were witnessed and reported to be moving toward the rebel stronghold of Donetsk by Organization for Security and Cooperation observers on Tuesday.
"Across the last two days, we have seen the same thing that OSCE is reporting. We have seen columns of Russian equipment, primarily Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems and Russian combat troops entering into Ukraine," U.S. General Philip Breedlove said in Sofia, according to NBC News.
"We do not have a good picture at this time of how many. We agree that there are multiple columns that we have seen," the military alliance's supreme allied commander added.
Apart from OSCE, the White House and Ukrainian authorities have also been recently speculating that pro-Russian separatists appear to be on the verge of a new offensive that might threaten communities between the Russian border and Ukraine's Crimea region, which Russia annexed in February, the Agence France-Presse reported.
NATO's report marks the latest in a string of recent sightings of unmarked trucks and heavy weapons heading towards the separatist-held city of Donetsk, where one Ukraine soldier was reportedly killed and two wounded after heavy artillery blasted the region on Wednesday, according to Ukraine military.
"What worries me the most is that we have a situation now that the former international border between Ukraine and Russia is completely porous, it is completely wide open," Breedlove said.
"Forces, money, support, supplies, weapons are flowing back and forth across this border completely at will and that is not a good situation," he said.
"We need to get back to a situation where this international border is respected and that will help us to contain the problem of re-supply into eastern Ukraine."
However, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the official spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, denied such assertions, BBC News reported.
"We've already stopped taking note of the unfounded statements by NATO," Konashenkov told reporters Wednesday, according to Russia's state-owned TASS news agency. "We've stressed many a time there are no real facts behind the acts of shaking the air by Brussels officials."
Since the September cease-fire between the two countries, continuous sporadic fighting has killed 400 people, according to Ukrainian authorities.
