Kyiv says battling armour from Russia as Moscow plans new convoy

Kyiv on Aug. 25 said its forces were clashing with an armoured column that crossed the border from Russia as Moscow ramped up tensions ahead of crunch talks by pledging to send in a new aid convoy.
      
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are under pressure to defuse the crisis when they meet for the first time in months alongside top EU officials in Minsk Tuesday.
      
A Ukrainian military spokesman told AFP that border guards were  battling "several dozen" armoured vehicles that smashed through the border in the south and headed in the direction of the government-held city of Mariupol.
      
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the report as Ukrainian and Western media disinformation, telling a Moscow news conference: "I haven't heard about it, but there has been more than enough disinformation about our invasion. No doubt some foreign newspaper will print that 'news' tomorrow."       

If confirmed, the incursion could represent a dangerous push into territory in the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control after a brutal offensive by Kyiv had seen government forces pin back struggling insurgent fighters.
      
A top rebel chief on Sunday announced a counter offensive to the south of the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk and claimed to have deployed fresh tanks and artillery.         

AFP journalists witnessed heavy fighting raging to the south of the city with the sound of explosions ringing out and smoke rising from towns to the south.        

While fighting raged on the ground, Moscow ratcheted up the pressure further by saying it would send another controversial aid convoy into east Ukraine.        ...