After Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised the two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine as independent states, a Reuters witness spotted columns of military vehicles, including tanks, on the outskirts of Donetsk, the capital of one of the two breakaway territories.
A Reuters correspondent saw five tanks in a column on the outskirts of town and two more in another area.
The tanks had no identification on them, but they appeared just hours after Putin signed friendship treaties with the two separatist regions and ordered Russian forces to deploy on a “peacekeeping” mission. In the preceding days, Reuters reporters in Donetsk had not seen tanks on the streets.
