DONETSK, Ukraine / MOSCOW — Russia threatened Ukraine on Sunday with "irreversible consequences" after a man was killed by a shell fired across the border from Ukraine, an incident Moscow described in warlike terms as aggression that must be met with a response. It appears to be the first time Moscow has reported fatalities on its side of the border in the three-month conflict which has killed hundreds of people in Ukraine.
Moscow's bellicose response to the cross-border shelling raises the renewed prospect of overt Russian intervention, after weeks in which President Vladimir Putin had appeared intent on disengaging, pulling back tens of thousands of troops he had massed at the frontier. Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, said reports that Ukrainian forces were responsible were "total nonsense and the information is untrue.” In Kiev, President Petro Poroshenko's office said he had turned down an invitation to attend the World Cup soccer final in Brazil because of the situation in Ukraine.
— Reuters