You're reading: More Russian troops and weapons enter east Ukraine war zone

As Ukrainian forces faced 20 attacks by Kremlin-led militants in the past 48 hours and spotted 30 enemy drones probing their positions, an unnamed NATO official said that Russia has sent additional military manpower and arms to Donbas, according to a news report by the FrankruterAllgemeine Zeitung that interviewed the person.

“We have noticed again support for the separatists,
with weapons, troops and training. Russia is still sending troops and arms from
one side of the open border with Ukraine to the other,” a NATO official,
who was not named, told the German news publication.

A suspected Russian-operated logistics center near the
Ukraine-Russian border “
that
operates the front of the rebels” couldn’t be accessed by the Organization for
Security and Cooperation and Europe, the international body charged with
monitoring the ever-faltering peace agreement between Ukraine and
Russian-backed forces with some 400 monitors.

When asked
which side of the war violates the latest and third such cease-fire brokered on
Feb. 12 in Minsk, Belarus, OSCE deputy chief monitor in Ukraine Alexander Hug
told Germany’s
N-TV
on April 11 that it is a “rough balance…we have difficulty accessing
territory that the Ukrainian government no longer controls…The rebels restrict
our movements…this applies especially to the hinterland of the battlefield, so
areas along the border with the Russian Federation are off limits.”

The allegations
emerge as the
foreign ministers of Ukraine, Germany France, and Russia
are set to meet on April 13 in Berlin to assess the implementation of the Minsk
truce.

The situation in Ukraine remains tense, with frequent
violations of the peace deal, France’s AFP news agency reported on April 12.

Two days
earlier, Ukraine’s
border guards
said they spotted a Russian Mil Mi-8 helicopter violate the
country’s airspace near the town of Stanychno-Luhanske in Luhansk Oblast that
flew back east, the authority said in a statement published on its website on
April 10.

The aircraft
is a twin-engine medium utility helicopter that was developed by the Soviet Union and still is in production today
by Russia.