Pro-Russian separatists have deployed more troops near the demarcation line defined in the Minsk agreement in eastern Ukraine.
Local sources reported rebel troop movements to the eastern Ukrainian city of Gorlivka while ignoring ceasefire violations.
A video of Russian-backed rebels’ military convoy, which includes main battle tanks, began circulating on social media earlier this morning. Six (4 T-72s and 2 T-64BVs) main battle tanks could be seen in footage circulating on social media.
Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of providing material support to the separatists, which Moscow denies. The sheer amount of sophisticated heavy weaponry in the hands of the insurgents, however, is widely seen as overwhelming evidence of direct involvement by Russia.
A military convoy of Russian-backed rebels’ tanks near Gorlivka, Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/SnhPo7yk5X
— Dylan Malyasov (@DylanMalyasov) March 21, 2021
Last month, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine reported that a Russian advanced radar station was spotted in Ukraine.
A statement from the SMM to Ukraine, which is charged with monitoring the implementation of the so-called Minsk II agreement, which is supposed to help deescalate the conflict in Donbas, claims that the Russian Kasta-2E1 radar system has been spotted at the training range near Bugaivka (37 km on the southwest of Luhansk).
In addition, earlier in November 2020, SMM to Ukraine has reported that it had spotted a modern Russian Navodchik-2 ground drone control station for unmanned aerial vehicles in Ukraine.
For the first time, Navodchik-2 ground control station and three boxes assessed as used for storing and transporting unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) were spotted at an airfield near non-government-controlled Luhansk city by SMM mini drone on 8 November.