ROSTOV-ON-DON, July 16. /ITAR-TASS/. Two shells fired from Ukraine hit the territory of Russia near the multi-way automobile border-crossing point Kuibyshevo, chief press officer in the Southern Customs Department Rayan Farukshin told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday.

“The personnel of the customs house were evacuated at 7.50am Moscow time (GMT+3) on Wednesday over blasts of shells fired from the Ukrainian customs checkpoint Marinovka. Shells exploded outside a border checkpoint in Russia. No one was injured in the incident,” Farukshin said.

He added that border guards from the Russian checkpoint Novoshakhtinsk had also been evacuated overnight to Wednesday. “Upon hearing the gunfire at the Ukrainian customs border-crossing point Dolzhansky at 3.40am Moscow time, the leadership of the customs checkpoint decided to evacuate all personnel. After the gunfire ended, Russian customs officers came back to their workplaces at 4.20am Moscow time,” he noted.

 

Foreign attaches to monitor situation on Russia-Ukraine border

Military attaches of German, French, Italian and Spanish embassies in Moscow accepted an invitation from the country’s Defense Ministry and set off to Russia’s southern Rostov region to see the real state of affairs on the Russian-Ukrainian border, press services of the mentioned-above diplomatic missions told ITAR-TASS.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it invited military attaches from 18 countries accredited in Moscow to learn the real situation at the Russia-Ukraine border in the Rostov Region. “For this purpose, we have invited military attaches from 18 countries (the USA, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ukraine, China, Japan and others]) to visit the said area on July 15, 2014,” the high-ranking military official said.

 

Shelling of Donetsk in Russia's Rostove Region

Russia’s Investigative Committee will request satellite data to identify Ukrainian army units and commanders responsible for shelling a Russian border town, which resulted in one person dead and two wounded, spokesperson for the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin said.

The incident occurred early on Sunday when several shells fired from the Ukrainian side exploded in the town of Donetsk in the southern Russian Rostov Region.

“Although the fact of shelling from the Ukrainian territory causes no doubts, all these data have been transferred to ballistics and explosives experts to answer the investigation’s questions about the type of shells, the trajectory of their flight, the place and the way of their launch,” Markin said.

 

Shelling of Russia's Gukovo checkpoint

On June 28, three Ukrainian rounds of ammunition landed on the territory of the Russian Federation in the southern Rostov Region, the head of the Russian Federal Security Service’s (FSB) regional border department, Vasily Malayev, said.

The multi-way automobile border crossing point Gukovo (Chervonopartizansk on the side of Ukraine) was damaged as a result.

On July 11, the Gukovo border checkpoint was hit by yet another Ukrainian shell. The transport station was damaged. The incident occurred at about 17.30 Moscow time on Thursday, the head of the press service of the Southern Customs Department, Rayan Farukshin, told ITAR-TASS.