U.S. says Russian-directed counteroffensive in Ukraine cities likely underway

The United States said on Wednesday new military incursions on Ukraine's eastern border indicate a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely underway in two Ukrainian towns.          

"These incursions indicate a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely underway in Donetsk and Luhansk," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a daily briefing.   

Earlier on Wednesday, the Ukrainian military said more Russian soldiers had crossed the border into eastern Ukraine, entering the small town of Amvrosiyivka in five armoured infantry carriers and a truck.        

The report of a further cross-border incursion by Russian troops followed the capture by Ukrainian government forces of a group of Russian paratroopers in roughly the same area.         

Moscow said the captured troops had strayed into Ukraine by mistake but Kiev said they had been on a "special mission" linked to the pro-Russian separatist rebellions in the east.           

"Five armoured infantry carriers and one Kamaz truck entered Amvrosiyivka with men in them," military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told journalists in Kiev.          

"If this tactical group got lost and accidentally came into Ukraine like the paratroops of the 98th paratroop division then it remains for us to remind them that they can return to Russia, taking an easterly direction," Lysenko remarked.         

Fighting was meanwhile continuing in key settlements near the rebel-held city of Donetsk despite peace talks on Tuesday in Minsk between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russia's Vladimir Putin at which the Ukrainian leader pledged to work on a road map that would lead to a ceasefire.         

Over the past 24 hours, Lysenko said, there had been intense fighting further north near the town of Horlivka and Ilovaysk, about 50 km (30 miles) away in which 200 separatists had been killed and their tanks and missile systems destroyed.        

Thirteen Ukrainian service personnel had been killed in the past 24 hours in 34 clashes at points across eastern and south-eastern Ukraine.           

Ukrainian military officials say the separatists, backed by Russian soldiers and armed with armour and military equipment coming from across the border, have switched the focus in the war towards the south-east of Ukraine down to the Azov Sea.         

Military successes there for the separatists could put in danger the key port city of Mariupol, held at the moment by government forces. If separatists got a grip on the south-east they could reinforce their positions in Donetsk from the south.         

Lysenko said that rebels "together with the Russian occupiers" had taken the settlement of Starobesheve, south-east from Donetsk, destroying a hospital in the process. Wounded, he said, were being evacuated south.         

The video footage of the captured Russian paratroopers is the strongest evidence yet to support Kiev's claims of Russian involvement in the five-month conflict in which the United Nations says more than 2,000 people - troops, civilians and rebels - have been killed.           

The crisis, which followed the ousting of a Moscow-backed president in Ukraine by street protests and a take-over by a pro-Western leadership has sparked the worst confrontation between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

FLOW OF WEAPONS

The flow of Russian forces and weapons into Ukraine is a major problem and Moscow must ensure that it stops, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said on Wednesday.       

Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told a news conference that a meeting in Minsk on Tuesday between Russia President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko was a good first step towards resolving the crisis but that concrete steps must follow.       

"The pre-condition for an effective two-way ceasefire is that Russia has to make its contribution to de-escalate and that there is an agreement to secure the border," Seibert said.        

"It's long overdue that this border is properly secured and that all forms of military support for the separatists over this border end. Russia has a big responsibility for that."

GAS FLOWS

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak dismissed Ukraine's claims that Moscow plans to block gas transit to Europe, saying on Wednesday that the assertions are groundless.     

Novak said in a statement that Russia will put forth "maximum efforts" to fulfill gas contract obligations to European importers regardless of political issues, adding that Russia is open for "constructive dialogue" on energy with interested partners including Ukraine.

This comes after Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said Kiev knew of plans by Russia to halt gas flows this winter to Europe, in comments which are likely to escalate the standoff between Moscow and the West.

Russia halted gas supplies to Ukraine in June over a gas pricing dispute, but it has continued supplies to Europe, its largest market.

"The situation in (Ukraine's) energy sector is difficult. We know of Russia's plans to block (gas) transit even to European Union countries this winter," he told a government meeting. 

Yatseniuk did not say how he knew about the Russian plans.