KIEV: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko sparked fresh Kremlin fury on Wednesday by warning that his crisis-torn country was fighting a "real war" against Russian aggressors that could escalate at any time.
The pro-Western leader said the weekend capture of two purported Russian special forces members proved that the separatist uprising in the industrial east of Ukraine was a guise for a Moscow-orchestrated campaign aimed at breaking up the ex-Soviet state.
"Can I be absolutely clear with you this is not a fight with Russian-backed separatists, this is a real war with Russia," the 49-year-old Ukrainian leader told the BBC.
"The fact that we captured... Russian regular special forces soldiers (is) strong evidence of that."
Ukraine's military on Tuesday showed off two wounded Russians who had been taken prisoner during a firefight in Lugansk -- a blue-collar region that together with neighbouring Donetsk revolted against Kiev's shift toward the West 13 months ago.
The men testified during a taped interrogation that they entered the warzone nearly two months ago as part of a 200-strong reconnaissance unit from the Russian army's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).
A Ukrainian Security Service spokesman said the suspects have been charged with involvement in "terrorist activity" and given a chance to phone their relatives back home.
Moscow acknowledges the presence of Russian "volunteers" and off-duty servicemen in Ukraine but rejects charges that they are there under orders from President Vladimir Putin's generals.
But two Russian opposition activists investigating the deaths of three special forces members said they had found fresh graves that showed they died on active duty in Ukraine.
Kiev's detention and display before world media Tuesday of the two soldiers captured in Lugansk has outraged the Kremlin and threatened to cement Putin's resolve to stamp his own solution on the crisis that would keep Kiev within Moscow's orbit for years.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said flatly that the "Kremlin does not agree" with what the Ukrainian leader told the BBC.
"First of all, one has to understand that unfortunately, Kiev is waging war against its own citizens," Russian news agencies quoted Peskov as saying.
"They are the ones coming under fire and they are the ones dying," said Peskov. "We should probably be talking about that first."
The United Nations believes the more-than-year-long conflict has claimed at least 6,250 lives and driven more than a million people from their homes.
A second truce agreement Poroshenko struck with Putin with the help of the leaders of Germany and France in February has thus far failed to take complete hold.
Ukraine lost at least eight servicemen since Monday in clashes across both renegade provinces. Kiev's armed forces blame the violence on a new infusion of Russian troops.
"I believe they are preparing an offensive and I think we should be ready and... not give them any chance for a provocation. That will totally be their responsibility," the Ukrainian president said.
In separate comments in Kiev on Wednesday he said that "between 4,000 and 14,000 members of Russia's regular forces" had been covertly stationed in eastern Ukraine throughout the war.
But Poroshenko -- elected last May on a pledge to quickly stamp out the pro-Russian uprising and reunify Ukraine -- also conceded that Ukraine was not strong enough to push back Russian troops.
He told the BBC he did not necessarily "trust" Putin but had no choice but to seek an understanding with the Kremlin strongman.
"I doubt the release of my territory (from Russian forces) could happen by military means," Poroshenko said.
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