In phone call to David Cameron, president appears to confirm reports that Russian armoured carriers had crossed border

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Ukraine claims to have destroyed Russian military vehicles in the country's east, a day after a column was spotted moving across the border.

Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, told David Cameron in a phone call on Friday that a column of Russian armoured vehicles had been destroyed. Russia has denied the vehicles were even in Ukraine.

A statement from Poroshenko's office said: "The president informed [Cameron] that the information was trustworthy because the majority of those machines [Russian military vehicles] had been eliminated by the Ukrainian artillery at night."

It added: "The president expressed concern over the situation on the border, particularly, over the fact that the inflow of Russian arms and military machines in Ukraine through the open part of the border continued."

The Guardian and Daily Telegraph reported on Thursday that correspondents had seen 23 Russian armoured personnel carriers, supported by fuel trucks and other military logistics vehicles, crossing into Ukrainian territory. It was impossible to verify the destination or ultimate fate of the convoy, or monitor how long it stayed on the other side of the border.

Separately, Nato said it had observed the Russian incursion. "What we have seen last night is the continuation of what we have seen for some time," said the Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Foreign Office (FCO) (@foreignoffice) #Russian @Amb_Yakovenko summoned to clarify reports of Russian military incursion into #Ukraine & continued build up of equipment on border.

Britain has summoned the Russian ambassador in London over the incursion.

A spokesman for Cameron said he had "expressed grave concerns at reports of Russian military vehicles crossing the border" in his phone conversation with Poroshenko.

"They agreed that humanitarian aid does need to reach those in the east, but this should be delivered through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Russia should be cooperating fully with the ICRC and must not use the aid convoy as a pretext for further provocation."

Russia has denied that its troops entered Ukrainian territory, saying the column of armoured vehicles spotted on the border was a unit of border guards patrolling the frontier.

The Federal Security Service said there was a detachment of border guards in the area to ensure safety and "prevent the infiltration of armed people on the territory of the Russian federation".

But the security service stressed that the unit operated exclusively on Russian territory. "In this regard, information on a group of Russian soldiers crossing the Russian-Ukrainian border is not true," RIA Novosti quoted an official as saying.