section_path: History/War in the Donbas (2014–2021)/August 2014 Russian invasion
section_name: August 2014 Russian invasion
paragraph_text: August 2014 Russian invasion
  
  By August 2014, Ukrainian forces had regained a lot of the territory seized by the separatists. Igor Girkin ('Strelkov') urged direct Russian military intervention, and said that the combat inexperience of his irregular forces, along with recruitment difficulties amongst the local population, had caused the setbacks. He stated, "Losing this war on the territory that President Vladimir Putin personally named New Russia would threaten the Kremlin's power and, personally, the power of the president". Strelkov said that in early August, Russian soldiers, supposedly on "vacation" from the army, began to arrive in Donbas. According to Nikolai Mitrokhin's estimates, by mid-August 2014 during the Battle of Ilovaisk, between 20,000 and 25,000 troops were fighting in the Donbas on the separatist side, and only 40–45% were "locals".
  
  Russia dispatched what it called a "humanitarian convoy" of trucks across the border on 22 August 2014. Ukraine's security service called this a "direct invasion" and said the trucks were being used to move weapons and bring the bodies of Russian soldiers out of Ukraine.
  
  Russia then began a more direct invasion of the Donbas. On 24 August 2014, Amvrosiivka was occupied by Russian paratroopers, supported by 250 armoured vehicles and artillery pieces. On 25 August, a column of Russian military vehicles was reported to have crossed into Ukraine near Novoazovsk on the Azov sea coast. It appeared headed towards Ukrainian-held Mariupol, in an area that had not seen pro-Russian presence for weeks. The following day, the Russian Defence Ministry said these soldiers had crossed the border "by accident". Russian troops captured Novoazovsk and began deporting Ukrainians who did not have an address registered within the city. Pro-Ukrainian anti-war protests took place in Mariupol. The UN Security Council called an emergency meeting.
  
  The Pskov -based 76th Guards Air Assault Division of the Russian Airborne Forces allegedly entered Ukrainian territory in August and engaged in a skirmish near Luhansk, suffering 70–80 dead. The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said that they had seized two of the unit's armoured vehicles near Luhansk, and reported destroying another three tanks and two armoured vehicles in other regions.
  
  The speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament and Russian state television channels acknowledged that Russian soldiers were in Ukraine, but referred to them as "volunteers" fighting for the " Russian world ". A reporter for Novaya Gazeta, an opposition newspaper in Russia, stated that the Russian military leadership paid soldiers to resign their commissions and fight in Ukraine in the early summer of 2014, and then began ordering soldiers into Ukraine. Russian opposition MP Lev Shlosberg made similar statements, although he said they were "regular Russian troops", disguised as units of the DPR and LPR.