The New York Times reports:
NOVOAZOVSK, Ukraine — Tanks, artillery and infantry have crossed from Russia into an unbreached part of eastern Ukraine in recent days, attacking Ukrainian forces and causing panic and wholesale retreat not only in this small border town but a wide swath of territory, in what Ukrainian and Western military officials are calling a stealth invasion.
The attacks outside this city and in an area to the north essentially have opened a new, third front in the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russian separatists, along with the fighting outside the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Exhausted, filthy and dismayed, Ukrainian soldiers staggering out of Novoazovsk for safer territory said Tuesday that the forces coming from Russia had treated them like cannon fodder. As they spoke, tank shells whistled in from the east and exploded nearby.
This is the same city outside which Ukrainian border guards had halted the advance of a Russian armored column on Monday. The news comes shortly after the secretary general of NATO announced plans to expand the organization’s presence and bases in Eastern Europe to deter Russia from interfering in other countries in the region (most notably the Baltic states) with significant Russian minority populations.