Moscow says Ukrainian shell killed Russian, warns of consequences

Kiev called the accusation that its forces fired across the border "total nonsense" and suggested the attack could have been the work of rebels trying to provoke Moscow to intervene on their behalf. The rebels denied they were responsible.

In Ukraine, where combat has intensified dramatically since a rebel missile attack killed dozens of government troops on Friday, local officials said 18 people were killed in shootings in the two main rebel-held cities.

Kiev said it bombarded a convoy of 100 armored vehicles and trucks that crossed into Ukraine carrying rebel fighters from Russia. It also said seven of its troops were killed in attacks.

Moscow's bellicose response to the cross-border shelling raises the renewed prospect of overt Russian intervention, after weeks in which President Vladimir Putin appeared intent on disengaging, pulling back tens of thousands of troops he had massed at the border.

Russia sent Ukraine a note of protest describing the incident as "an aggressive act by the Ukrainian side against sovereign Russian territory and the citizens of the Russian Federation," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement warning of "irreversible consequences."

"This represents a qualitative escalation of the danger to our citizens, now even on our own territory. Of course this naturally cannot pass without a response," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told Rossiya-24 state TV.

Russia's Investigative Committee said a shell had landed in the yard of a house in Donetsk, a small town on the Russian side of the border, killing a man and wounding a woman. The town is shares a name with the Ukrainian city of 1 million people that the rebels have declared the capital of an independent people's republic.

Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said, "There is a report that this shelling was carried out by Ukrainian forces. This is total nonsense, and the information is untrue.

"The forces of the anti-terrorist operation do not fire on the territory of a neighboring country, and they do not fire on residential areas," he said. "We have many examples of terrorists carrying out provocation shooting, including into Russian territory, and then accusing Ukrainian forces of it."

The rebels denied responsibility. The Interfax news agency quoted the rebels' self-proclaimed first deputy prime minister, Andrey Prugin, as saying he was "90 percent certain" it was Ukrainian troops who fired across the border because the rebels are short on ammunition and cautious about where they fire.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in April when armed pro-Russian fighters seized towns and government buildings weeks after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea in response to the overthrow of a pro-Moscow president in Kiev.

The fighting has escalated sharply in recent days after Ukrainian forces pushed the rebels out of their most heavily fortified bastion, Slovyansk.

Hundreds of rebels, led by a self-proclaimed defense minister from Moscow, have retreated to Ukraine's Donetsk, built reinforcements and pledged to make a stand.

Kiev says Moscow has provoked the rebellion and allowed fighters and heavy weapons to cross the border with impunity. Ukraine has struggled to reassert control over the eastern frontier and recapture border positions from rebels.

The past two days have seen an escalation in retaliation after dozens of Ukrainian troops were killed in a rocket attack on a base near the border on Friday. Kiev said it killed hundreds of rebels in airstrikes on Saturday, although there was no independent confirmation of such high casualties, and the rebels denied suffering serious losses. 

Lysenko said on Sunday that forces used artillery to strike a convoy of about 100 armored vehicles and trucks after confirming that the convoy was carrying "a large number of recruits" into Ukraine from Russia.

He said seven Ukrainian service members died in attacks in the east in the past day.

The Donetsk city council said in a statement on its website on Sunday that 12 people were killed at a mining settlement near the city but gave no details on who was responsible. Municipal authorities in Luhansk, the capital of one of two rebellious eastern provinces, said six people were killed in clashes there. It also did not indicate who was to blame.

Western countries have threatened to impose harsh economic sanctions on Moscow if it intervenes openly in the conflict in its former Soviet neighbor. Russia denies fueling the conflict, but Kiev and Western countries say it has supported the rebels.

Reuters