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Russia has consistently denied sending tanks into Ukraine, arguing that any vehicles used by separatist forces there must have been captured from the Ukrainian army itself. But now experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London have told the BBC that they have identified a Russian tank in a separatist column in eastern Ukraine that they say could only have come from across the border in Russia.

A group of Russian paratroopers captured by Ukrainian forces gave a news conference on Wednesday in which they maintained their innocence.

The 10 captured Russian paratroopers told about the purpose of their invasion of Ukraine.

<p>As Russia forces push forward towards the southeastern Ukraine coastal city of Mariupol and evidence mounts of direct Russian military support to the insurgent fighters, besieged volunteer units of "patriots" leading the way in the country's fight back say they are not receiving enough support from Kiev to win the war.</p>

There is more and more evidence that Russian soldiers are fighting – and dying – on Ukrainian territory, and that the so-called ‘humanitarian convoy’ may have been used to take the dead back to Russia, including paratroopers from Pskov killed near Luhansk A day of mourning has been declared in the Russian city of Pskov on Aug 26. This comes five days after the Ukrainian armed captured two armed personnel carriers and reportedly discovered documents identifying men as paratroopers from the Pskov airborne brigade No. 74268. It has long been known that a large number of Russian mercenaries, as well...

It looks extremely likely that at least some of the considerable number of men from the Caucuses long known to be fighting on the side of the Kremlin-backed militants in eastern Ukraine are or died as soldiers of the Russian Army. The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers in the Stavropol area has drawn up a list of around four hundred Russian soldiers killed or injured. The head of the Committee Ludmila Bogatenkova told TV Dozhd that the list was put together from various sources in the armed forces which, for obvious reasons, she cannot reveal.. The names are from several mechanical...

In its editorial comment, Vedomosti.ru warns that “in the conflict in the south-east of Ukraine the Russian authorities are in danger of repeating the mistakes of the Soviet regime”/ It asks: “Is Russia fighting in Ukraine and if so, then on what grounds? If not, then who is in those freshly-dug graves or giving testimony at SBU interrogations?” Even Russian President Vladimir Putin’s KGB predecessors were unable to keep the death of large numbers of people secret, though they certainly tried. Efforts are still underway in Pskov and other parts of Russia to conceal the death or injury of a...

Russia’s persistent military infiltrations into Ukrainian territory represent a “significant escalation” of the conflict there, the White House warned late Monday night after the capture of 10 Russian paratroopers in Eastern Ukraine. "Repeated Russian incursions into Ukraine unacceptable. Dangerous and inflammatory," National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on Twitter. The top Obama aide said the Kremlin had sent artillery, air defense system, dozens of tanks, and military personnel into the volatile region, where pro-Russian separatists are battling government forces from Kiev. “Russia has no right to send vehicles or cargo into Ukraine without” the government’s permission, she said. Kiev said...

A group of Russian servicemen detained in eastern Ukraine did not get lost, but were carrying out a special task, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) spokesman Andriy Lysenko has said.

Russian soldiers captured by Ukrainian forces entered Ukraine by mistake, a Defense Ministry source has told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. “The soldiers were patrolling the Russian-Ukrainian border when they most likely crossed accidentally at an unequipped and unmarked checkpoint,” said the unnamed source. On the evening on Aug. 25, the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, said it had captured 10 Russian soldiers in the village of Dzerkalny, Donetsk Oblast, roughly 14 kilometers from the Russian border in a statement on its website. The capture of the Russian soldiers comes at a time when border tensions between Ukraine...

Russia’s 98th paratroopers’ brigade moving to Mariupol Zahar Lavrentiev, one of ‘Azov’ volunteer battalion servicemen, wrote in Facebook Aug. 25 that Russia’s 98th brigade of paratroopers is deploying to Mariupol. “Putin has started the open war. The 98th brigade is marching toward Mariupol now. We’ve taken two paratroopers prisoners. They were sure they are on a military exercise.

KYIV, August 25 /Ukrinform/. Azov battalion deputy commander Ihor Mosiychuk has reported an invasion of a large number of tanks, Grad multiple rocket launchers and howitzers through the Ukrainian-Russian border. He wrote this on his page on Facebook. "A full-scale invasion! This information has been fully confirmed by border guards and volunteers. Near the settlements of Marchenko and Shcherbak, not far from Novoazovsk, about 30 tanks with sketched Russian labels and under the symbols of the so-called DPR broke through the Ukrainian-Russian border. This convoy of armored vehicles is moving toward Telmanove and Amvrosiyivka," Mosiychuk said. According to the report,...

KYIV, August 23 /Ukrinform/. Russian humanitarian convoy is unloaded in Donbas, and a part of already unloaded trucks returns to the Russian Federation. The TSN informs. "Ukrainian customs workers managed to check and make customs clearance of only 34 trucks of the Russian humanitarian convoy. The rest of over 200 trucks crossed by border absolutely illegally... According to the Ukrainian customs workers, a part of trucks has already headed back. What does this mean, where did they unload, what did they leave on the territory of Ukraine - now there are more questions than answers,” a statement reads.

World NATO says Russian convoy move 'only deepens crisis' BRUSSELS: NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen sharply criticised the Russian decision to advance a "so-called" aid convoy into Ukraine on Friday (Aug 22) as a "blatant breach" of international commitments that "only deepens the crisis". "This is a blatant breach of Russia's international commitments... and a further violation of Ukraine's sovereignty by Russia," Rasmussen said in a statement. "It can only deepen the crisis in the region, which Russia itself has created and has continued to fuel," he said. Rasmussen poured doubt on Moscow's claim that the convoy, which had been...

Russia's decision to send more than 100 aid lorries into war-torn eastern Ukraine without permission has been widely condemned in the West.

Pentagon Press Secretary RADM John Kirby says Russia must remove a convoy from Ukraine immediately. VIDEO

Whether or not St. Louis will play host to migrant children who are part of the Central American border surge is still unclear. In the meantime, community members are praying. Nearly 70 people gathered at Tower Grove Park for a prayer vigil for migrant children. The vigil was hosted by a coalition of organizations that, along with St. Louis and St. Louis County, applied for federal grants to help house undocumented youth from Central America. Javier Orozco is the executive director for intercultural and interreligious affairs at the Archdiocese of St. Louis, which co-hosted the event. He says several St....

State Attorney General Kamala Harris is asking private law firms to provide free legal help to the wave of Central American children pouring into the state. Harris has called for a sit-down Wednesday in her San Francisco office with attorneys from a dozen firms, as well as with representatives of nonprofits, legal-aid groups and charities. The attorney general's office itself is legally barred from representing the youngsters, so Harris is using her "convening power" to pull together private help. The exact number of unaccompanied children showing up at the California border is hard to come by, but we're told that...

The flood of migrant children that sparked a humanitarian crisis this summer was mostly a near-shore affair. Almost all of those children — 98 percent — caught and processed by U.S. Border Patrol this fiscal year came from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador or Mexico. But kids coming from Central America aren't the only ones trying to slip across the border. According to data obtained by Fusion from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, border agents have caught unaccompanied children arriving from as far away as China, India, Albania and Morocco. More than two-thirds of these kids caught and processed by U.S....

ANOTHER weekend, another two thousand-odd immigrants rescued by Italian sailors and coastguards in the Mediterranean. On August 11th the San Giusto, an amphibious transport vessel, landed 1,698 people in Reggio Calabria, a city in southern Italy. The day before, a naval patrol vessel and a frigate disembarked 364 people at ports in eastern Sicily. The number of people arriving in Italy by sea this year may already exceed 100,000. By the end of July approximately 93,000 migrants had been rescued. The previous record for an entire year was set in 2011 when around 60,000 people reached Italian shores at the...