USA Today – by Tom Vanden Brook
The Russian military fired artillery rounds into eastern Ukraine on Thursday, a “clear escalation” of hostilities there, Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said.
Russia has about 12,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, Warren said. Russian tanks, artillery and rocket launchers have crossed into Ukraine to support separatists there.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has not spoken to his Russian counterpart about the artillery attack and has no plans to, Warren said.
“This is a clear escalation,” Warren said.
The Russians have conducted artillery attacks on Ukraine military targets for the last several days, Warren said.
The State Department also said Thursday they had evidence of the Russian attack.
“We have new evidence that the Russians intend to deliver heavier and more powerful multiple rocket launchers to separatist forces in Ukraine and have evidence that Russia is firing artillery from within Russian to attack Ukrainian military positions,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters.
The allegations come a day after two Ukrainian attack planes were shot down over rebel-held territory. Ukraine’s government said the missiles were fired from Russia. U.S. defense and intelligence officials said they could not verify the claim.
Contributing: Jim Michaels
I guess we’ll just ignore the artillery fire across the border INTO Russia causing fatalities and destruction.
The hypocrisy of the western powers boggles the mind.
What do people expect the some Russian artilary commander who just saw a all the ,500,000 Ukrainians pour into Russia with their wives and kids trying to get them to safty. Yes. That is UKRAINIANS!!!
So he fired a warning shot to the A-holes killing people on the Russian side of that border.
People were complaining to me today that Russian government is arming the partisans in Donetsk, and Lugansk. I told them “SO WHAT!!!”. Those COMMUNISTS in Kiev of the ZIONIST persuation are threatening Reprisal mideaval style. What on earth do they expect people to do but to go to the border with Russia and buy from the thriving black market arms trade in Russia all the gear they need to wage war against a bunch of butchers? Who can blame them.
The real difference between what is going on in Ukraine is that when they had their WACO they went to war. We didn’t.