US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called his Russian opposite number Sergei Shoigu on Friday and was promised that no Russian troops are assigned to a "humanitarian convoy" headed to Ukraine.

"Minister Shoigu 'guaranteed' that there were no Russian military personnel involved in the humanitarian convoy, nor was the convoy to be used as a pretext to further intervene in Ukraine," the Pentagon said.

Moscow has a convoy of white-painted trucks carrying what it says is humanitarian aid to the beleaguered civilian population in eastern Ukraine, where government troops are fighting pro-Russian rebels.

But the vehicles closely resemble models used by the Russian army and there have been allegations that the drivers, seen in photographs as identically dressed in khaki "uniforms," are soldiers.

Kiev fears that the delivery could be an attempt to either smuggle more supplies to the separatist rebels or provoke an armed incident that would in turn be used to justify stronger Russian intervention.

But the Pentagon statement said Shoigu had insisted to Hagel that the convoy was not a disguised military column and vowed that the aid it carries would be properly distributed by a neutral third party.

"Minister Shoigu assured Secretary Hagel that Russia was meeting Ukraine's conditions," it said.

"He acknowledged that the goods would be delivered and distributed under the International Committee of the Red Cross," it added.

"The two ministers discussed the need to have bilateral follow-on meetings of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. They also agreed to maintain open lines of communication."

Russian defence ministry denies military convoy entered Ukraine
Moscow (AFP) Aug 15, 2014 - The Russian defence ministry denied Friday that it had sent a military convoy into Ukraine after officials in Kiev said they destroyed part of the armoured column.

Major-General Igor Konashenkov said "there exists no Russian military convoy that supposedly crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border...", but better that Ukraine's armed forces "destroy phantoms instead of refugees or their own soldiers," he added, according to Russian news agencies.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told British Prime Minister David Cameron that government artillery had destroyed a "considerable part" of a small military convoy that entered the country, the presidency said in a statement earlier Friday.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen backed reports of the "Russian incursion" after British media said it had seen the convoy of some 20 vehicles cross the border.

Konashenkov lashed out at Western officials launching accusations based on "fantasies" that journalists are reporting on social media sites.

"It appears this discussing for days some post on Twitter instead of seeing the mass killing of peaceful civilians going on in the centre of Europe due to the result of large-scale shelling of cities is becoming a serious and widespread disease, or even epidemic," he was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

Meanwhile, in a call with his US counterpart Chuck Hagel, Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu criticised Ukraine's use of heavy weapons against civilians.

Shoigu expressed Russia's view of the "unacceptability of (Ukrainian) government forces using military aircraft and heavy weapons including rocket launchers against peaceful civilians and civil infrastructure" in eastern Ukraine, according to a defence ministry statement cited by RIA-Novosti news agency.