Summary
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accused Russia Wednesday of sending 9,000 troops to back separatist rebels in the east of his country, saying the move has prompted the recent uptick of violence.
However, Poroshenko won support from NATO, which said the amount of heavy military equipment used by Russian troops in eastern Ukraine had increased, and the alliance repeated its call for the forces to withdraw.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Poroshenko made one of Kiev's boldest assertions yet that Russia's military is directly involved in a conflict in which over 4,800 people have died since April.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news briefing that the Western alliance had monitored Russian troops in Ukraine for several months and seen an increase lately in numbers of tanks, artillery pieces and other heavy equipment.
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