The Russian Foreign Ministry has sent a note of protest to Ukraine over the violation by Ukrainian soldiers of the joint border with Russia in the Kuibyshevsky district of its Rostov region, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website on Friday, Interfax agency reports.
"We see such actions by the Ukrainian side as a gross violation of the fundamental provisions of the international law, as an unlawful act that will not facilitate a peaceful resolution of the armed conflict in South-East Ukraine," the ministry said in the statement.
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Russia has demanded that this sort of provocations should stop as they "hamper the incipient process of restoring the bilateral Russian-Ukrainian dialogue."
It was reported earlier that two armored vehicles of the Ukrainian armed forces had illegally crossed the Russian border in the Kuibyshevsky district of the Rostov region in the early hours of June 13.
Following the incident Russian President's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told Interfax that Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian Foreign Ministry to present a demarche to Ukraine over the violation of the Russian border by Ukrainian soldiers.
Ukrainian military violates Russian border - Kremlin
Russia on Friday claimed that the Ukrainian military had violated its border with at least one infantry combat vehicle. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency that the incursion took place on Friday, a day after Ukraine hit out over an alleged border violation by Russian tanks. President Vladimir Putin "has told the foreign ministry to contact the Ukrainian side on the issue of the border violation by Ukrainian troops," Peskov said.
Russian border guards said that a Ukrainian BMP armoured infantry vehicle was discovered Friday noon in the Rostov region's Kuibyshev district, AFP transmits.
The vehicle was 150 meters inside Russian territory, border guard spokesman Vaslily Malayev said. He added that it was empty but that its crew later returned to retrieve it. "That attempt was thwarted by border guards and the trespassers withdrew," he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
A Ukrainian Defence Ministry spokesman, Vladislav Seleznyov, said in Kiev that he would look into the accusations, but that he had doubts about them, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reported.
It is the first time Moscow claims that Kiev had violated the border since fighting between self-defense forces and government forces in eastern Ukraine began.
The incident comes one day after Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov accused the self-defense forces of bringing in at least three tanks from Russia in an area close to the border crossing mentioned by Malayev.
Experts, however, quickly pointed out that militants had probably taken the tanks from a Ukrainian depot, as photos and video footage showed vintage Soviet T-64 tanks that are no longer in service in Russia but still used by the Ukrainian armed forces.
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