Updated Aug. 16, 2014 6:03 p.m. ET
Russian military vehicles drive along the road outside Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Russia, on Saturday. Reuters
Ukraine and Russia on Saturday appeared to be seeking to avoid a broader confrontation in the wake of Kiev's claim it destroyed most of a Russian military convoy that entered its territory, as the European Union intensified its efforts to bring the two countries to the negotiating table.
Col. Andriy Lysenko, the Ukrainian government's security spokesman, said Saturday that Ukrainian artillery had destroyed most of a Russian column of military vehicles that entered the country earlier in the week. But he described the episode as a commonplace incident, refused to release further details and gave no indication that it marked the start of a more direct military engagement between Russia and Ukraine.
"This was a traditional route of movement of armored convoys to the territory of Ukraine, and the Ukraine military were able to destroy most of those convoys," Col. Lysenko said.
No photographs have surfaced of the aftermath of the attack, which Russia's Defense Ministry dismissed on Friday as "some kind of fantasy." The claim, marking the most direct and publicized military clash between Russia and Ukraine since the conflict began, jolted global markets Friday.
Western officials slammed the apparent incursion but some played down the significance of the incident, noting that military equipment was believed to have been flowing over the border to pro-Russia separatists for months. Col. Lysenko's comments backed up the idea that the incident didn't represent a military turning point in the conflict.
European leaders intensified efforts on Saturday to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table, trying to calm a crisis that has escalated since the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 last month. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto shuttled to Kiev to meet with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko after sitting down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia. French President François Hollande called for calm after consulting with European Commission President José Manuel Barroso ahead of a meeting of the Ukrainian, Russian, French and German foreign ministers in Berlin on Sunday.
"Mr. Hollande repeated that Russia must commit to respecting Ukraine's territorial integrity and called on Ukraine to show restraint and discernment in the ongoing military operations against the separatists," the French president's office said in a statement. "It is necessary to re-create the conditions for and resume a meaningful political process."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday called on Moscow to respond to reports that tanks and troops had crossed from Russia into Ukraine. Ms. Merkel spoke on the phone with Mr. Poroshenko, and the two said arms deliveries from Russian territory to pro-Russia rebels in Ukraine should stop.
Kiev and the rebels gave conflicting accounts of the situation in eastern Ukraine, where government forces have tried to encircle the main separatist strongholds, the Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. Col. Lysenko said rebels in those cities were losing faith and trying to sneak out wearing civilian clothes.
But Alexander Zakharchenko, the new leader of the rebel government known as the Donetsk People's Republic, said in a video posted online that his forces had been reinforced recently with 1,200 servicemen who had trained at a camp in Russia for four months. He said the rebels had also gathered 150 armored vehicles, including about 30 tanks. In a later video interview with Russia's LifeNews website, Mr. Zakharchenko said the equipment had been left behind by Ukraine's military, not sent by Russia.
"The Ukrainian forces have left us so much military equipment that we don't even have enough time to form the crews," Mr. Zakharchenko said.
In Russia, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Russia and Ukraine have reached an agreement on how to process the convoy of nearly 300 trucks carrying Russian aid, which is parked in a field several miles from the border.
After five hours of talks, a Red Cross official said both sides had agreed how to proceed "in terms of clearing, inspecting and preparing the convoy" to eventually bring the goods into eastern Ukraine.
"At this stage, the technical, and fiscal, and paperwork procedures are all cleared," said Pascal Cuttat, head of regional delegation of ICRC for Russia, Belarus and Moldova.
But it is unclear when the convoy will set off. Mr. Cuttat said the Red Cross was waiting for security guarantees from all sides, and Ukraine is yet to inspect the goods in the vehicles and give its approval for them to be delivered.
The atmosphere was still tense at the Ukrainian border near the southwest Russian town of Donetsk—which has the same name as the Ukrainian rebel stronghold.
Military activities continued on the Russian side next to the border with Ukraine. A column of 11 vehicles with caterpillar treads stood with engines running on the road to the Ukranian border late Saturday.
Another column of some 20 vehicles, also with caterpillar treads, was seen about 25 miles from the Ukrainian border, on the federal highway from Moscow to Rostov-on-Don. Men dressed in military-style clothes were riding on top of the vehicles, some of them waving hands as people along the highway were shooting videos on their smartphones.
The insignia on the men's uniforms couldn't be seen in the dark.
At one point Saturday afternoon, blasts could be heard apparently coming from the Ukrainian side of the border. Soon an ambulance with Russian license plates drove through the border checkpoint toward Ukraine. An official with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has been monitoring the checkpoint, said the blasts could have been artillery rounds.
"This has been going on for the past days and weeks," said the official, Paul Picard. "It was more quiet here recently."
Mr. Picard said the OSCE had observed groups of young men in military-style dress crossing back and forth across the border in the past two weeks.
"Some of them have backpacks but we have never seen weapons," Mr. Picard said. "They are going in both directions. It happens randomly, but on a regular basis."
—James Marson and Inti Landauro contributed to this article.
Write to Anton Troianovski at anton.troianovski@wsj.com and Andrey Ostroukh at andrey.ostroukh@wsj.com
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