Update | Kiev says 1,500 heavily-armed Russian troops enter Ukraine over weekend
Nine Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 26 wounded in fighting with Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern regions in the past 24 hours
At least 1,500 Russian troops and convoys of military hardware entered Ukraine over the weekend, the Ukrainian military said on Monday.
“1,500 Russian soldiers and 300 pieces of military equipment, including Grad missile systems, crossed the Ukraine-Russia border on February 7 and 8,” Ukraine military spokesman Andrily Lysensko told journalists.
Nine Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 26 wounded in fighting with Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern regions in the past 24 hours, another military spokesman in Kiev said earlier on Monday.
The spokesman, Vyacheslav Seleznyov, said government forces had come under attack from the rebels on about 100 separate occasions.
Violence has intensified in the past month as rebels push a new offensive.