Things just escalated notably – (Via Bloomberg):

• *UKRAINE FORCES ATTACK ARMED CONVOY FROM RUSSIA: LYSENKO 
• *UKRAINE TROOPS ‘DESTROY’ PART OF ARMED CONVOY: LYSENKO
• *UKRAINE’S POROSHENKO: CONFIRMED APC INCURSION TO CAMERON

Reuters reports,

Ukrainian artillery destroyed a “significant” part of a Russian armoured column that crossed into Ukraine during the night, President Petro Poroshenko told British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday, according to the presidential website.

Separately, a Ukrainian military spokesman said Ukrainian forces had tracked the Russian armoured column as soon as it crossed onto Ukrainian soil.”Appropriate actions were undertaken and a part of it no longer exists,” military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told journalists.

We await Putin’s response…

• *RUSSIA CONCERNED AT ATTEMPTS TO DISRUPT AID CONVOY
• *RUSSIA SAYS IT’S GETTING INFO OF DIRECT THREATS TO CONVOY
• *RUSSIA SAYS UKRAINE INTENSIFIES MILITARY OPS TO DISRUPT CONVOY

EU & US Stocks and bond yields (and Ruble) are tumbling, gold rising.

Of course we noted this last night…

As The Guardian reports,

While the white trucks came to a halt well short of Ukraine’s border, a different Russian convoy did cross into Ukrainian territory late on Thursday evening.

The Guardian saw a column of 23 armoured personnel carriers, supported by fuel trucks and other logistics vehicles with official Russian military plates, travelling towards the border near the Russian town of Donetsk.

After pausing by the side of the road until nightfall, the convoy crossed into Ukrainian territory, using a rough dirt track and clearly crossing through a gap in a barbed wire fence that demarcates the border. Armed men were visible in the gloom by the border fence as the column moved into Ukraine.

Kiev has lost control of its side of the border in this area.

The trucks are unlikely to represent a full-scale official Russian invasion, and it was unclear how far they planned to travel inside Ukrainian territory and how long they would stay. But it was incontrovertible evidence of what Ukraine has long claimed – that Russian troops are active inside its borders.

…

The armoured column seen by the Guardian appeared to be further evidence of Russia’s incursions, which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.

Read more here…

But stocks didn’t care…

But do now…

A reminder of the comparative anxiety in bonds and stocks…

From Reuters:

• UKRAINIAN MILITARY SPOKESMAN SAYS UKRAINE FORCES ENGAGED RUSSIAN ARMOURED COLUMN ON UKRAINIAN SOIL AND “PART OF IT NO LONGER EXISTS”
• UKRAINIAN MILITARY SPOKESMAN SAYS UKRAINIAN FORCES HAD TRACKED RUSSIAN ARMOURED COLUMN AFTER IT CROSSED BORDER INTO UKRAINE
• RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS UKRAINIAN FORCES ENGAGING IN INTENSE FIGHTING IN EASTERN UKRAINE TO STOP HUMANITARIAN AID TO THE REGION

The result…

The Ruble snapped lower but is recovering..

But stocks knew better?

Chart: bloomberg

Did Ukraine Attack Its Own Tanks? White House “Can’t Confirm Russian Convoy Was Destroyed By Kiev”

by Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge

While today’s trading session was marked by news which at first blush correlated with what may be the 2014 equivalent of the Archduke Ferdinand shooting, in retrospect the newsflow made painfully little sense. Let’s recap:

1. Yesterday afternoon, two UK reporters working for the Guardian and Telegraph, supposedly located by the border in east Ukraine, reported that they were “eyewitnesses” as a convoy of military trucks crossed the Russian border into the breakaway Donetsk republic, aka Ukraine. While there have been photos of the military trucks that have accompanied the Russian humantiarian convoy on Russian territory, there has so far been no proof, aside from said eyewitness reports, confirming Russian military vehicles entered or were in Ukraine.
2. This morning Ukraine military’s spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, shocked the world when newswires reported that Ukraine forces had attacked an armed convoy from Russia, and “destroyed” a part of it. This was subsequently reiterated by the president of Ukraine himself who said that “the given information was trustworthy and confirmed because the majority of that machines had been eliminated by the Ukrainian artillery at night”, and by the secretary-general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said that the alliance had detected an “incursion” of vehicles from Russia last night, adding that “what we have seen last night is the continuation of what we have seen for some time.” Alas, as in the case above, just more verbal reports, with zero actual evidence.
3. Shortly thereafter, Russia responded when the Russian defense ministry said that there was no Russian military column that crossed into Eastern Ukraine, and that the above reports are based on “some fantasies.”

This is where the breakdown of logic occurs, because for Russia to make such a formal statement it clearly implies that Russia believes there is no evidence of destruction of a Russian convoy in Ukraine territory, something which obviously would exist if indeed as Ukraine’s president had claimed, the “majority of the machines had been eliminated.”

If true, it also implies that either Ukraine had fabricated the entire story, and certainly the part about the destruction of the convoy and by extension that Russians had ever entered into East Ukraine. Furthermore, that would also suggest that the reports of the British reporters were also a fabrication.

Unless, of course, there is evidence, in which case the credibility of the both the Guardian and Telegraph reporters can be preserved, Ukraine can not be accused of fabricating a story to suit what some may say its own warmongering ambitions, and the onus is on Russia to explain why it lied about there being no invasion.

More to the point, the onus is on Ukraine to present some evidence, in fact any evidence, of a destroyed Russian military convoy instead of merely building upon a story conceived by the two UK media outlets, because if Ukraine indeed has no evidence, then its story falls apart and what’s worse, the credibility and reputation of its government, of NATO and certainly of the UK press would be in tatters.

So what other possibility is there? Well, one that is all too unpalatable for Ukraine, namely that in its excitement to blow something up, it may have well destroyed some of its own military vehicles. A possible lead to such a turn of events comes from this Interfax report citing the leadership of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic.

The leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has dismissed the Ukrainian government’s statement on destroying a convoy of what appeared to be Russian armored vehicles in eastern Ukraine.

 

“We haven’t received any armored vehicles from Russia. No Russian units, including Russian armored vehicles, have crossed the border. Hence, no Russian armored vehicles could have been destroyed,” DPR First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Purgin told Interfax on Friday evening.

 

Purgin claimed that, on the contrary, the militias destroyed about 100 Ukrainian armored vehicles.

 

“A lot of Ukrainian armored vehicles were destroyed today, 7 at one place, 12 at another. And the same all over the DPR territory. A total of about 100 of them,” Purgin said.

The implication is clear: while 100 or so Ukraine armored vehicles may or may not have been destroyed, one wonders if indeed the Ukraine army was responsible in “aiding” the separatists with what would appear to be a friendly-fire incident?

But perhaps the most damning evidence comes from none other than the White House itself, which according to CNN just admitted that while it accuses Moscow of “incursions” it can’t confirm the convoy was destroyed by Kiev.

Perhaps for the simplest reason that there is no evidence to help with the confirmation process?

Which is rather unpleasant, because as explained above, without confirmation of a destroyed convoy, the whole story falls apart as merely yet another unprecedented warmongering fabrication, one involving not only the Kiev regime, but NATO and the UK press as well!

What is worse, is that if indeed the specter arises that Ukraine is lying about an event that nearly gave the market a heart attack on the belief that a new international war involving Russia may be about to break out, was Ukraine also lying about flight MH-17. And else may the Kiev regime been lying about?

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