CRI听力:Russia Denies Sending in Troops and Tanks into Eastern Ukraine

Russia is denying accusations it has sent in troops and tanks into eastern Ukraine to back the separatists over the past few days.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexander Lukashevich.

"I am telling you very frankly and officially as well: there are no military forces or any military movement across the border and moreover there is no presence of our troops in the territory of Ukraine, in its south-east. There has never been and there isn't."

European observers in Ukraine, there to monitor the ceasefire signed in September, say they've seen several columns of unmarked soldiers and tanks travelling away from the Russian border.

In Kiev, Ukraine's Security chief Andriy Lysenko is warning that the situation in the east of the country is steadily worsening. "The Ukrainian military observes a constant movement of Russian military equipment with terrorist marks to the delimitation line. Russian military units are being concentrated along the Ukrainian-Russian border. The biggest military activity was spotted in the Luhansk direction."

September's cease-fire between the separatists and Ukraine's government has been violated on an almost daily basis over the past few weeks.