MOSCOW, August 17 (RIA Novosti) – The Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) working in Ukraine under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) could not confirm the reports of a large number of Russian military convoys crossing the Ukrainian, an annual report of the SMM said.
“The SMM has been trying to verify reports on the crossing into Ukrainian territory of a number of military convoys from the Russian Federation, but has, thus far, not been able to establish the facts,” the statement published on the OSCE website Saturday read.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko claimed that the Ukrainian artillery destroyed part of the Russian military hardware that had allegedly crossed into Ukraine at night.
The announcement came soon after a number of foreign news agencies reported that a convoy of military vehicles with Russian license plates crossed into Ukraine via the Izvarino border checkpoint.
The Russian Defense Ministry refuted the allegations, calling the claims a 'fantasy' that is not worth discussing. The Russian Border Guard Service has also stressed that the reports bear no relation to the reality and explained that cross-border regions were indeed being patrolled by mobile teams of border guards but solely on the Russian territory.
