A Pro-Russian rebel walks past a car destroyed by a rocket during recent shelling in Donetsk
Fighting in eastern Ukraine intensified yesterday ahead of much-anticipated peace talks, with both sides claiming significant advances and the government accusing the rebels of shelling a town far behind the front lines.
The intense fighting, which the U.N. says has killed more than 5,300 people since April, comes ahead of a crucial summit involving Western leaders today.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told Parliament that Russian-backed rebels conducted an artillery strike on the town of Kramatorsk, which is more than 50 kilometers away from the front line.
Kramatorsk was the site of major fighting until July when pro-Russian separatists retreated from it.
Local website Donetskiye Novosti posted photos from the scene, showing an artillery shell stuck in the ground next to a residential building and two bodies lying nearby.
The volunteer Azov battalion, loyal to Kiev, said on social media yesterday that it captured several villages northeast of the strategic port of Mariupol, pushing the rebels closer to the border with Russia. However, rebel military spokesman Eduard Basurin said in a televised news conference that the rebels have not retreated.
The Azov said rebels shelled the village of Kominternove, east of Mariupol, causing unspecified civilian casualties. An Associated Press reporter at a government check-point between there and government-controlled Mariupol was told of ongoing fighting several miles away. Two ambulances and four pick-up trucks carrying Ukrainian troops were seen coming from the direction of Kominternove toward Mariupol.
The rebels reported advances, too. Basurin said late Monday that they have surrounded the railway hub of Debaltseve, the focus of fierce fighting in the past weeks, cutting it off from a major highway. A video posted online by a rebel-sympathizing website showed the separatists moving along the highway while the bloodied bodies of Ukrainian soldiers lay on the side of the road.
At least seven Ukrainian troops were killed overnight in the east, Ukrainian military spokesman Anatoliy Matyukhin said yesterday. In the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, which comes under constant shelling, two civilians were killed and 12 injured. Peter Leonard, Sartana , AP
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