A column of Ukrainian paratroopers stops for a rest in Druzhkivka, Donetsk region: Ukrainian officials claim fighters have crossed the border from Russia

Muddled security officials in Ukraine were last night forced to deny a huge Russian military convoy had been deployed in the eastern rebel-run city of Lugansk.



The strong rebuttal suggested an earlier claim about an invasion by Vladimir Putin's troops amounted to a crude propaganda move by the pro-Western Kiev government - or deep confusion in its own ranks.



The original allegation of a Russian column arriving in Lugansk came from Lt-Gen Igor Voronchenko, head of the Ukrainian Anti Terrorist Operation (ATO) in the city, and was backed by military analyst Dmitry Tymchuk.



'There are tanks, Grad artillery, APCs, accompanied by about 1,200 men dressed in the army uniform of Russian Federation,' the general was quoted saying in an assertion calculated to alarm the West.



Yet there was no confirmation on Wednesday from NATO or other Western sources which was widely reported inside Ukraine.



The claim was also contradicted closer to home by Kiev's National Security and Defence Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko who dismissed it as 'strange'.



'Intelligence is not confirming the existence of this column,' he said.



Later after checking it, he stated: 'Rebels who are fighting in Lugansk do have military hardware and Grad artillery but they did not get it yesterday. They had it for a while.'



Vorochenko and a chorus of social media sources had indicated a recent move.



'We can confirm this information. This army column got to Ukraine about three days ago,' he said.



Russia has repeatedly denied supplying heavy arms and fighters to pro-Moscow separatists fighting in Lugansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine.



Rebel spokesman Kostyantyn Knyrik dismissed the reports as 'pure bluff' and 'lies'.

'There is no Russian column, and there never was. It is not the first time that the Ukrainian side makes such statements, and not the first time it is a miss. They seem to be passionate about these columns.'



Kiev is understood to have received 'advice' from Western spin doctors and 'PR specialists', while Moscow also pays attention to an 'information war'.

Ukraine yesterday claimed to have taken control of a large area of Lugansk, another indication that there was no new Russian military presence.



There is speculation Ukraine will hype up its military achievements ahead of a weekend when it will mark its Independence Day.



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Ready for battle: If the claims that tanks, artillery and 1,200 men had come into Lugansk from Russia are true then these Ukrainian servicemen will soon have a big fight on their hands. Russia denies arming separatists

Lysenko today said government forces are now controlling 'significant parts' of the eastern city.



Lugansk has been without electricity, running water or phone connections for 18 days due to the fighting.



A separate 280-truck Russian 'aid' convoy is still stalled at the border amid fears in Kiev that it has a military purpose.

Russia and Ukraine said yesterday their presidents would meet together with top European Union officials in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, on Monday to discuss their confrontation over Ukraine

The meeting will put Putin and Poroshenko in the same room for the first time since a passing encounter in France in June, though Ukrainian officials were at pains to say no face-to-face meeting between the two men was planned.

Nonetheless, with a Ukrainian military offensive making inroads against pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, Reuters reports that Ukrainian officials were upbeat that the meeting could be a diplomatic opportunity.

Fear: A woman and her baby hide in a shelter in Makeyevka near Donetsk, where fighting continues

'Today a clear diplomatic roadmap is taking shape. We can come up with new approaches that will allow us to talk about a move from war to peace,' said Valery Chaly, Poroshenko's top foreign policy aide.

But that hope could turn sour if claims that separatists have had significant reinforcements courtesy of Russia. Messages posted on to Twitter, the microblogging website, appeared to back up the claims.

One read: 'Column from Russian Federation entered the town with Russian army. It came from the East of Lugansk. At first we thought it was Ukrainian army. It was going for 2 hours, with white ribbons on the arms, without flags.'

Another said: 'All is bad! Welcome humanitarian aid from Russia, newest T-72, Grads and other presents.'

A further Tweet read: 'At about 2 pm on the street called '30th anniversary of the Victory' there was spotted a column of military hardware - tanks and infantry armoured vehicles.'

KREMLIN TAKES AIM AT BIG MAC: 3 MCDONALDS RESTAURANTS FORCED TO CLOSE IN MOSCOW AS RUSSIA REACTS TO WESTERN SANCTIONS

The Russian authorities tonight ordered the temporary closure of three McDonalds restaurants in Moscow, including the chain's iconic first outlet in the Soviet era. Last night the move was seen as a ratcheting up of the Kremlin's tit-for-tat response to Western sanctions over Vladimir Putin's policies in Ukraine. The Russian agency responsible for consumer rights and sanitary safety, known as RosPotrebNadzor, demanded the suspension of operations at the three restaurants, including the original Moscow McDonalds on Pushkin Square. Two others to be hit are both located close to the Kremlin. The authorities indicated the chain is suspected of 'violations of sanitary standards'. Such tactics are often used by the Russian authorities as a mask for political motives. 'Due to a protocol received from RosPotrebNadzor, the work of three McDonalds restaurants in Moscow was suspended,' said a statement from the operating company. 'We are studying the details of the claims and will figure out the necessary actions aimed at quickest possible opening of these restaurants.' Last month the Russian watchdog accused McDonalds of 'violations which put the product quality and safety of the entire McDonald's chain in doubt'. Inspectors highlighted the chain's Caesar Roll and Vegetable Salad as flouting Russian food standards. When McDonald's first opened in the glasnost era in 1990, it was seen as an emblematic moment in the move away from Communism. Some 30,000 meals were served on day one, with Russians queuing six hours to taste their first Big Mac. The chain now has 400-plus outlets in Russia and is currently expanding into Siberia - but the row with the West amounts to the toughest time for the chain in Moscow since 1990.

Anastasiya Stanko, a journalist with Hromadske.tv, reported: 'I have information from the administration of Lugansk that a column of Russia military hardware entered the city, at least 150 vehicles, including tanks, Grad artillery and infantry armoured vehicles, also about 1,200 soldiers.'

She stated: 'All are dressed in Russian army uniform but without chevrons.

'At the moment they are at the 30th anniversary of war victory street in Lugansk.

'There is information that this column crossed the border about three days ago and got to Lugansk via Severnyi Donets.'

The equipment came from the same vicinity as where the stalled humanitarian convoy was based near the Russian-Ukraine border in Rostov region, she said.

Mr Voronchenko linked the men and hardware to an announcement last week from separatist 'prime minister' in Donetsk, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, that he had obtained 150 pieces of military hardware 'infantry fighting vehicles and armoured personnel carriers' from Russia.

He also boasted the rebels had been boosted by 1,200 fighters 'who have received four months training in the Russian Federation'.

Hiding: Both the Ukrainian army and the rebel fighters have accused each other of targeting civilians

Russia dismissed this report but Mr Voronchenko said the new force in Lugansk 'is exactly what that Russian creature Zakharchenko spoke about'.

Yesterday, the Mail's correspondent in Russia reported movements of heavy military hardware in Rostov, the Russian region which borders Ukraine, in previous days. Tanks were seen carried West towards the frontier on trucks which later returned empty.

TANKS SEEN MOVING IN RUSSIA TOWARDS BORDER WITH UKRAINE Russia yesterday faced accusations of 'throwing new swarms of mercenaries and columns of military equipment' to back up rebels in east Ukraine. New pictures showed Russian military units moving close to the border, as Ukraine's army continued making significant advances into rebel-held areas. Kiev claims that some of this armoured hardware as well as Grad missile systems are crossing the border in support of the separatist cause, allegations strongly denied by Moscow. The Kremlin was making little attempt to hide its show of force in the Rostov region, which borders both Ukraine's Lugansk and Donetsk regions. Some 13 trucks which were seen yesterday carrying tanks towards the border were today spotted empty and moving in the direction of the city of Rostov-on-Don, said locals in an area some 30 miles from the border. There is no proof that the the tanks crossed into rebel-held Ukraine. Advertisement

Ukrainian military analyst Dmitry Tymchuk said: 'Unfortunately, we can confirm the fact that the column of Russian military equipment broke through to Lugansk to back up the local militants.'

This development came yesterday, he said, though some Russian military hardware had arrived earlier.

'According to our data, a few dozen units of military equipment broke through into the neighbourhood of Lugansk, up to 40 of them are heavy armoured vehicles. Part of this column entered the city.

'How the column of vehicles could have broken through the blockade line, considering the fact that Lugansk is being blocked by a circle of checkpoints and fortified strong points of ATO forces, we currently cannot say.'

Military activity on the ground has been high in recent days in Rostov region in areas close to the border where the West claims Russia has station large forces.

NATO warned last week about the threat of a Russian invasion into eastern Ukraine. Now it looks like such a possibility could overshadow any hopes of defusing the worst crisis to engulf Europe since the Cold War.

At Monday's planned talks in Minsk, Putin will be accompanied by Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko and Kazkahstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Their countries are members of the Russia-led Customs Union which the Western-backed Kiev leadership spurned in favour of EU integration when it seized power in February.

A statement from Poroshenko's administration said the meeting would discuss issues related to implementing the landmark association agreement Kiev signed with the EU, energy security and 'stabilising the situation in Ukraine'.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said only that the leaders 'will discuss relations between Ukraine and the Customs Union and there will be a number of bilateral meetings.'

Head to head: Russia and Ukraine said on yesterday their presidents would meet together with top European Union officials in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, on Monday to discuss their confrontation over Ukraine

The Minsk meeting will form part of a hectic round of diplomatic meetings for Poroshenko in the next two weeks around Ukraine's Independence Day celebrations on Sunday, when he hopes to be able to celebrate battlefield successes against the separatists.

He will host a key visit to Kiev by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday when he will expect her to voice strong support for his policies to crush the separatist rebellions.

Separately, Poroshenko's website said he had accepted an invitation by the EU to visit Brussels on August 30 and would attend also a summit of the U.S.-led NATO alliance in Wales in early September when he may meet U.S. President Barack Obama, his aides said.

'We can not say for certain yet, but I think that it would be correct if a meeting between the presidents of Ukraine and the United States took place at this summit,' Mr Chaly said.

UKRAINE SUPPORTERS SCALE MOSCOW SKYSCRAPER AND PLANT FLAG Pro-Ukrainian activists scaled one of Moscow's landmark Stalin-era skyscrapers and placed a blue and yellow Ukrainian flag at its pinnacle last night. The yellow star which tops the 29-storey Kotelnicheskaya Embankment building, which is emblazoned with a Communist-era hammer and sickle, was also painted half blue. It is claimed the perpetrators escaped from the building by parachute. One for the scrapbook: A roofer takes a selfie with the Ukrainian flag at the tip of the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment building before taking it down earlier today. Four people were arrested over the stunt Four suspects - two young men and two young women, according to ITAR-TASS - were being held by Moscow police today in connection with the stunt. They deny charges of vandalism. A police source said: 'The unidentified men got inside the building and using the internal staircase reached the top floor.' They then used 'professional equipment' and 'climbed up and attached the flag on the top of the skyscraper'. The building with 26 floors and 540 apartments was constructed between 1938 and 1952 under the close supervision of Stalin's notorious secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria, who installed bugging devices in some flats. Ballerina Galina Ulanova, singer Lyudmila Zykina, poet Andrei Voznesensky, and other famous Soviet actors and writers lived in the block, the creaking corridors of which are rumoured to be haunted by Soviet ghosts. Advertisement

Rebels and locals struggle to maintain normal life in Donetsk as the Ukrainian army closes in

It has been weeks since Donetsk last had a traffic jam.

The regular rumble on the edge of this besieged city in eastern Ukraine is a constant reminder of the government's effort to shell armed pro-Russian separatists out of their stronghold. Rebels give as good as they get, blindly lobbing shells back at an unseen foe.

As fighting edges ever closer to the center, hundreds of thousands have fled a city once home to 1 million people. The bustle of a major industrial center has given way to the stillness of fear.

Life in a warzone: A man stands behind broken glass after Ukrainian army shelling of the business centre in downtown Donetsk, Ukraine, which is poised to fall to advancing troops

College teacher Nataliya Badibina said she would have left to stay with relatives in Russia were it not for her mother and father.

'My parents are ill. They live nearby and I am not going to leave them,' said Ms Badibina, whose apartment block in Donetsk's western Petrovsky district had its windows blown out by shrapnel from a Grad rocket that landed in her courtyard.

Petrovsky district is on the edge of Donetsk and near some of the heaviest fighting seen in the city.

A local supermarket is still open and provides groceries for anybody with the money to buy them. Most people do their shopping before lunchtime, said Ms Badibina, after which the daily booms of artillery start anew.

A few restaurants have braved the shelling and serve customers, albeit typically giving notice that they close well before the 11pm rebel-imposed curfew. After that, the streets become deserted and an even ghostlier silence descends, only to be periodically punctured in the night by artillery booms.

Funds for many are running dry as pensions and government salaries are held up. City council spokesman Maxim Rovinsky said those paid on bank cards still get their money. Many others haven't been paid since June.

On Tuesday, a crowd formed outside the 11th floor rebel headquarters in Donetsk amid rumors that pension and disability payments and child assistance were being given out.

Holding a sheaf of photocopied documents, Vyacheslav Melnikov said he was there to apply for money for his two disabled grandchildren.

'I don't even have enough money to feed them. I hope they will help us,' he said.

One woman in line, Tatyana Ostrovksaya, said she wanted to be paid the money due to her brother, Viktor, who was killed in a rocket attack earlier in the month.

'They're supposed to pay out two months' worth of pension, but nobody will pay it to me,' Ms Ostrovksaya said.

It is not immediately clear where the funds to pay such applicants will come from. Rebel leaders announced months ago that they would raise funds by levying taxes from local businesses, but almost all private enterprises have ceased to operate altogether.

Battered: A woman passes the site of a rocket explosion near the business center in downtown Donetsk

Tragic: A woman stands by the body of a dead man after a Ukrainian army mortar attack hit the city centre

Shops in pedestrian underpasses feel relatively safe from bombardment, although the racket of trams passing overhead can unnerve newcomers likely to mistake it for a rocket hitting the ground. Business owners say they have long become accustomed to the sounds of war. The sheer imprecision of the weapons being indiscriminately used by rebels and government forces alike makes a target of everybody.

Even as chaos brews, a kind of ersatz normality has taken over.

The rebel headquarters, once the Donetsk region administrative building, has been substantially tidied up since it was first occupied and ransacked by separatists in April.

Many windows and fittings are still smashed, but the smell of stale alcohol that permeated the stairwell is largely gone, as are the random piles of binders once stacked up haphazardly in the offices. Rebel bureaucrats sit at their desks and ink documents with their own self-styled stamps.

The barricades of bricks and tires that once skirted the building were removed in late May, although some crude graffiti remains.

The regular police service has been disbanded and in its place are officers from the self-described Donetsk People's Republic. Drivers still mostly stop obediently at traffic lights, not least because the rebel road police now carry automatic rifles. Stories abound of drivers caught speeding having their cars impounded at the point of a gun.

As part of an ostensible law-and-order campaign, the rebel leadership announced this week that it was introducing the death penalty for the most serious crimes. Pressed for information about which offenses would be punishable by death, Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the rebel republic, was unable to offer specifics.

Resistance: A rebel-controlled 122-mm self-propelled howitzer moves along a street in Donetsk

The struggle to maintain normal life took a major blow over the weekend as water taps began to run dry. Local authorities explained that damage to an electricity line had cut off power to the water treatment facility that provided for most of the city's needs. Supplies are now sporadic or nonexistent in some neighborhoods.

Electricity and gas supplies continue to be provided to most of the city because of the efforts of utilities workers who, amid the fighting, repair damaged pipelines and overhead cables. Even gardeners working for City Hall continue to carefully tend flower displays; street cleaners have ensured Donetsk's streets do not pile up with trash.

Rovinsky of the city council said the hospitals and the fire service are also still operating, although there is a shortage of personnel and medical supplies.

The rebel FM radio station, Radio Respublika, broadcasts tips on how to behave in the event of shelling. Among the pieces of advice offered by the radio presenter in one afternoon show was to always keep mobile phones fully charged, have an emergency suitcase with basic items at hand and stock up on medicine such as painkillers and tranquillizers.

'And you must also have water. Plus some food, which should be high-calorie and not take up too much room, like dry fruit or hard cheese,' he said.

If larger numbers of people have not fled the prospect of all-out urban fighting, it is partly out of fear that their homes will be looted, as Badibina said happened in the Petrovksy district.

Many once eagerly fulminated against the government or grumbled quietly about the rebels. Now a kind of resigned trepidation is setting in as winter beckons.