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ByDaltonBennett The Associated Press NOVOAZOVSK, UKRAINE Two columns of tanks and military vehicles rolled into southeastern Ukraine from Russia on Thursday after Grad missiles were fired at a border post and Ukraine's overmatched border guards fled, a top Ukrainian official said. Echoing the comments by Ukrainian Col. Andriy Lysenko, a senior NATO of- ficial said at least 1,000 Rus- sian troops have poured into Ukraine with sophis- ticated equipment, leaving no doubt that the Russian military had invaded south- eastern Ukraine. "The hand from behind is becoming more and more overt now," Brig. Gen. Nico Tak said at NATO's military headquarters, adding that Russia's ultimate aim was to stave off defeat for the separatists and turn east- ern Ukraine into a "frozen conflict" that would desta- bilize the country indefi- nitely. "An invasion is an inva- sion is an invasion," tweeted the Lithuanian ambassador to the U.N., Raimonda Mur- mokaite. The U.N. Security Coun- cil will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday after- noon. "Russian forces have en- tered Ukraine," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said, canceling a foreign trip and calling an emer- gency meeting of the coun- try's security council. "To- day the president's place is in Kiev." Poroshenko urged his cit- izens to resist giving into panic. "Destabilization of the situation and panic, this is as much of a weapon of the enemy as tanks," Po- roshenko told the security council. As Poroshenko spoke, the strategic southeastern town of Novoazovsk appeared firmly under the control of separatists and their Rus- sian backers, a new, third front in the war in eastern Ukraine between the sep- aratists and Poroshenko's government in Kiev. Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told the BBC that "NATO has never produced a sin- gle piece of evidence" of Russian troops operating in Ukraine. He said the only Russian soldiers in Ukraine were the 10 captured this week, who Moscow insists had mistakenly wandered across the border. The Russian Defense Ministry didn't directly deny its troops were in Ukraine, but said the list of Russian military units said to be operating in Ukraine had no relation to reality. Lysenko said the missiles from Russia were fired at Ukrainian positions in the southeast about 11 a.m. and an hour and a half later, two columns,includingtanksand other fighting vehicles, be- gan an attack. They entered Ukraine from Veselo-Vozne- senka and Maximovo in the Rostov region of Russia. Russian stock markets dived as Switzerland joined the European Union in im- posing restrictions on Rus- sian state banks and fears grew that the U.S. and EU could impose further sanc- tions on Russian businesses and individuals in response to the military escala- tion. Russia's MICEX index dropped nearly 2 percent on Thursday, and major Rus- sian state banks VTB and Sberbank dropped more than 4 percent. "Over the past two weeks we have noted a significant escalation in both the level and sophistication of Rus- sia's military interference in Ukraine," Tak said in Cas- teau, Belgium. "Russia is re- inforcing and resupplying separatist forces in a bla- tant attempt to change the momentum of the fighting, which is currently favoring the Ukrainian military." He said the 1,000 Russian troops was a conservative estimate and said another 20,000 Russian troops were right over the border. NATO also produced sat- ellite images to provide what it called additional evidence that Russian combat sol- diers, equipped with sophis- ticated heavy weaponry, are operating inside Ukraine's sovereign territory. "This is highly sophis- ticated weaponry that re- quires well-trained crews, well-trained command and control elements, and it is extremely unlikely that this sort of equipment is used by volunteers," Tak said. Moscow has described the Russian citizens fight- ing with the separatists as volunteers. Tak said the satellite im- ages were only "the tip of the iceberg" in terms of the overall scope of Russian troop and weapons move- ments. EASTERN EUROPE Russian columns enter Ukraine; calm urged MSTISLAVCHERNOV—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS A school damaged by shelling in the town of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, on Thursday. By Bradley Klapper The Associated Press WASHINGTON President Barack Obama suggested Thursday that the U.S. might impose new eco- nomic sanctions on Russia, blaming it squarely for the warfare in eastern Ukraine. But he ruled out any mili- tary options and proposed no shift in an American-led strategy that has yet to con- vince Moscow to halt opera- tions against its far weaker neighbor. Briefing reporters at the White House, Obama said he spoke by telephone with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Europe's larg- est economy and a coun- try that has led diplomatic efforts to end the fighting between Ukraine and Rus- sian-backed rebels. They spoke after two columns of Russian tanks and mil- itary vehicles entered the country's southeast and fired Grad missiles at a border post and 1,000 Rus- sian troops poured into the country, according to NATO and Ukrainian officials. "We agree, if there was ever any doubt, that Russia is responsible for the vio- lence in eastern Ukraine. The violence is encour- aged by Russia. The sepa- ratists are trained by Rus- sia, they are armed by Russia, they are funded by Russia," Obama said. "Rus- sia has deliberately and re- peatedly violated the sov- ereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and the new images of Rus- sian forces inside Ukraine make that plain for the world to see." Obama was cautious in foreshadowing a possible American response, ex- pressly ruling out any U.S. military involvement. He said Russia's recent activ- ity in Ukraine would in- cur "more costs and con- sequences," though these seemed to be limited to economic pressure that will be discussed when Obama meets with European lead- ers at a NATO summit in Wales next week. He also offered "unwavering com- mitment" to Ukraine and announced that its West- ern-looking president, Petro Poroshenko, would visit the White House next month. The Russian offensive comes after months of fight- ing in eastern Ukraine, which U.S. and other West- ern countries say Mos- cow has orchestrated. Af- ter Ukraine's pro-Russian leader fled the country ear- lier this year and a new government turned away from Moscow toward its European neighbors, Rus- sia seized and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. Since then, it has continued to provide support for armed pro-Russian groups fight- ing the Ukrainian govern- ment despite rising U.S. and European sanctions against Russian government of- ficials, banks and energy companies. Obama said the sanc- tions have been "effective," prompting capital to flee Russia and its economy to decline, but they've done little to convince Putin to end Russia's intervention in Ukraine, a former So- viet republic. The presi- dent said Russia has been involved in all separatist activity and that the lat- est its latest escalation ap- peared to be a response to progress by Ukraine's gov- ernment against the main rebel-held areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. WASHINGTON Obama puts Ukraine violence squarely on Russia JOSE LUIS MAGANA — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Demonstrators protest at Freedom Plaza in Washington asking President Barack Obama to modify his deportations policies on Aug. 2. By Jim Kuhnhenn The Associated Press WASHINGTON With a self- imposed deadline looming, President Barack Obama said Thursday he still in- tends to act on his own to change immigration poli- cies but stopped short of reiterating his past vows to act by end of summer. Obama raised the slim hope that Congress could take action on a broad im- migration overhaul after the midterm elections in November. He said that if lawmakers did not pass an overhaul, "I'm going to do what I can to make sure the system works better." But for the first time since pledging to act by summer's end, he sig- naled that such a target date could slip. He noted that the administration had been working to re- duce the flow of unaccom- panied minors attempt- ing to cross the border and noted that the number of apprehensions at the bor- der had fallen in August. "Some of these things do affect time lines and we're just going to be working through as systematically as possible in order to get this done," he said in a news conference where he also addressed Rus- sian aggression in Ukraine and action against Islamic State militants. Two months ago, Obama angrily conceded that the House did not intend to take up immigration leg- islation this year and or- dered Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to come up with ac- tions the president could take on his own. "I expect their recom- mendations before the end of summer and I intend to adopt those recommenda- tions without further de- lay," he said at the time. Since then, the admin- istration was forced to deal with the sharp rise of young migrants from Central America who were crossing the south- west border. Obama asked Congress for $3.7 billion to deal with the flow, a re- quest that Republican law- makers rejected. At the same time, some Democrats worried that if Obama took action on his own on reducing immigra- tion it would mobilize Re- publican voters in hotly contested Senate races. Obama said Thursday that addressing the inflow of unaccompanied minors has not stopped the pro- cess of looking into "how do we get a smart immi- gration system in place while we're waiting for Congress to act. "And it continues to be my belief that, if I can't see the congressional action, that I need to do at least what I can in order to make the system work better." The most sweeping, con- troversial step under con- sideration involves halt- ing deportation for mil- lions, a major expansion of a 2012 Obama program that deferred prosecutions for those brought here ille- gally as children. Roughly half a million people have benefited from that program, known as Deferred Action for Child- hood Arrivals, or DACA. Obama sets no timeline for action on immigration WASHINGTON The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO Hillary Rodham Clinton broke nearly three weeks of si- lence Thursday on the fatal police shooting of an un- armed Missouri teenager, saying his death and the violent protests that fol- lowed resulted from frayed bonds of trust in a racially divided community. The remarks by the for- mer secretary of state dur- ing a speech to a technol- ogy group were her first about Michael Brown's Aug. 9 death in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson. As a potential Demo- cratic presidential can- didate, Clinton was criti- cized for waiting so long to talk about the black teen's shooting by a white police officer after a midday con- frontation on a street. Clinton lamented the shooting and the numer- ous tense confrontations that followed between an- gry protesters and heavily armed police. "This is what happens when the bonds of trust and respect that hold any community together fray," she said. "Nobody wants to see out streets look like a war zone. Not in America. We are better than that." She said America can- not ignore inequalities in its justice system. "Imagine if white driv- ers were three times as likely to be searched by police during a traffic stop as black drivers, instead of the other way around," she said, or "if white offend- ers received prison sen- tences 10 percent longer than black offenders for the same crimes." Clinton noted that higher percentages of black men go to prison compared to white men. "That is the reality in the lives of so many of our fellow Americans and so many of the communi- ties in which they live," she said. She said Martin Lu- ther King Jr.'s call for ra- cial equality "is as fiercely urgent today" as it was de- cades ago. Civil rights activist Al Sharpton was among those who chastised Clinton and other politicians for wait- ing weeks to discuss the events in Ferguson. Sharp- ton said Clinton and for- mer Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a potential GOP presiden- tial candidate, should not "get laryngitis on this is- sue." POLICE SHOOTING Clinton says frayed trust led to Ferguson violence STOVEJUNCTION The TheNorthState'spremiersupplierofstoves 22825 Antelope Blvd., Red Bluff 530-528-2221 • Fax 530-528-2229 www.thestovejunction.com Over 25 years of experience Tues-Sat9am-5pm• ClosedSun&Mon Now Carrying! GreenMountainGrills & Accessories Serving Butte, Glenn & Tehama Counties Smog Check (MOST CARS & PICK-UPS) 527-9841 • 195 S. 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