DONETSK, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that more than 9,000 Russian soldiers are backing up pro-Moscow rebels here in war-torn eastern Ukraine, where fighting raged on and the roars of artillery fire could be heard from all corners of the city on Wednesday.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Poroshenko alleged that 500 Russian tanks, a range of heavy artillery and armored personnel carriers are currently operating on Ukrainian soil.
"If this is not aggression, what is aggression?" the pro-Western president said.
Over 9,000 Russian troops are now in Ukraine. If this is not an aggression, then what is an aggression?— Петро Порошенко (@poroshenko) January 21, 2015
Dashcam footage published to YouTube on Tuesday purported to show a massive amount of Russian firepower, including what have been identified as T-80U battle tanks, headed toward the Ukrainian border.
Poroshenko called on Moscow to comply with a peace deal first hashed out last September, assist in closing its border with Ukraine and withdraw Russian forces.
"The solution is very simple. Stop supplying weapons. Stop supplying ammunition. Withdraw the troops and close the border. A very simple peace plan," Poroshenko said, addressing Moscow directly.
Arguing that attacks by Russian-backed rebels here in the east are "terrorist attacks," he showed his Davos audience a piece of yellow metal riddled with shrapnel holes from a bus hit in a rebel rocket attack that killed 13 people last week.
For me it symbolizes a terror attack against Ukraine. Terrorism is a worldwide foe but we will win! #wef15 pic.twitter.com/QZfJAwuNmM— Петро Порошенко (@poroshenko) January 21, 2015
This is just terribly sad. Poroshenko with a piece of the #Volnovakha bus at #Davos2015. Via @ukrpravda_news pic.twitter.com/HFIR6XSSi0— Natalia Antonova (@NataliaAntonova) January 21, 2015
Poroshenko cut short his visit to Davos to return to Kiev because of the escalation of the conflict.
Moscow has vehemently denied supporting the rebels in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions despite a preponderance of evidence gathered by journalists and NATO satellite imagery purporting to show Russian troops operating in Ukraine.
Still, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday challenged Kiev to "present the proof" of Russian forces' presence on the ground in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine has said Russian troops remove official insignia and identifying tags from their uniforms and vehicles to disguise themselves as local rebel fighters in the same manner they did during the stealth seizure of Crimea -- a tactic that earned them the nickname "little green men" -- before Moscow annexed the peninsula last March.
Mashable has observed convoys of military vehicles without plates moving from the Russian-Ukrainian border toward Donetsk in past months.
On Wednesday evening local time, Germany was set to host representatives of Russia, Ukraine and France in Berlin to discuss the conflict. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the aim of the talks was to prepare for a possible four-way summit between the countries.
Lavrov said he would seek an immediate cease-fire in eastern Ukraine at the Berlin talks, adding that the tenuous armistice reached last September in Minsk, Belarus, had failed because Kiev had not respected a demarcation line agreed upon.
Russia, he said, had done its "utmost" to resolve the conflict, now in its ninth month, and "maintain the integrity of Ukraine."
Meanwhile, in Donetsk, five civilians were killed and at least 30 wounded when shells exploded in several districts of the pro-Russian rebel stronghold, local authorities said.
Shelling in Donetsk on Tuesday killed at least six civilians as fighting escalated between Ukrainian government and rebel forces. Reporters for the Associated Press saw the bodies of two people who were killed at a bus stop in the city.
A 4-year-old boy was among those killed in his home by a rocket on Tuesday. His mother and sister were critically injured and were taken to an area hospital, according to reports.
More than 4,800 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since the start of the conflict last April, according to the United Nations.
