Because I'm Vlad, I'm Vlad, You Know It!

MOSCOW — Declaring that Russian troops had crossed into Ukraine, President Petro O. Poroshenko on Thursday canceled a planned visit to Turkey and convened a meeting of the national security council to focus on the “marked aggravation of the situation” in the southeast of his country.

The meeting of the national security council will focus on shaping a response, and Ukraine will also request a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

Mr. Poroshenko made his comments as the leader of the main separatist group in southeastern Ukraine said that up to 4,000 Russians, including active-duty soldiers on leave, had been fighting against Ukrainian government forces and NATO released images that show Russian artillery units and about 1,000 soldiers operating in Ukraine.

“There are active soldiers fighting among us who preferred to spend their vacation not on the beach, but with us, among their brothers, who are fighting for their freedom,” Aleksandr Zakharchenko, a rebel commander and the prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, said in an interview on Russian state-run television.

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A column of 32 tanks and other heavy weapons has entered Ukraine from Russia, the Ukrainian military said Friday, after the latest fighting left five dead and at least 31 injured. …

Another column including trucks and three mobile radar stations crossed another border point in the same region, he said.

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The vote for autonomy in Ukraine’s rebel-held provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk is a repeat of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.N. Yuriy Sergeyev told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.

“This is Crimea two,” Sergeyev said, adding that Russia annexing the eastern provinces is one of the “possible scenarios.”

Voters went to the polls on Sunday to elect leaders to rule the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics. The election was backed by the Kremlin, but labelled by Kiev and several Western governments as illegitimate, echoing what happened in the Crimean peninsula before Russia annexed it in February.

Ukraine is facing an “artificial scenario when alleged leaders backed by alleged support – they will propose, can propose to be a part of Russia,” Sergeyev said.

He also expressed concern that the fragile ceasefire agreed between Kiev and pro-Russian rebels in Minsk, Belarus, in September, has now been compromised.

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