Seven civilians were killed when shells hit a trolley bus station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the City Council there said Thursday, as the months-long conflict in the country’s east showed little sign of easing.
In total, 10 civilians have been killed and 20 injured in shelling of four city districts in the past 24 hours, the Donetsk City Council said on its website.
“As of now, the situation remains difficult,” the statement reads.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has a monitoring mission in Ukraine, said it was still assessing what had happened in the bus incident. Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug told a news conference that an OCSE patrol had seen seven bodies near a vehicle that had been hit.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry blamed pro-Russian separatists for the attack, saying it was launched from areas they control. Russia’s Foreign Ministry, though, demanded an investigation and criticized Ukraine for its shelling of cities.
Donetsk has been a stronghold for the rebels, who have been battling government forces for control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions since the spring.
Militants shelled two civilian areas elsewhere in the Donetsk region early Thursday, Ukraine’s state-run Ukrinform news agency reported, citing Donetsk regional police Chief Vyacheslav Abroskin.
The reported shelling comes after talks Wednesday in Berlin among the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France aimed at resolving the crisis through the implementation of a peace deal agreed to last year.
After Wednesday’s talks, the four foreign ministers condemned the continuing violence and called for the peace deal agreed to in Minsk, Belarus, last September to be respected.
Fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions “has severely escalated causing the loss of many human lives including civilians. This must stop immediately and the regime of quiet must be restored,” the ministers said.
They said “tangible progress” must be made on full implementation of the Minsk pact ahead of a planned peace summit.
Poroshenko: ‘9,000 Russian troops in Ukraine’
Ukraine’s government this week accused Russia of sending troops across the border to support the pro-Russian rebels. Russia denies the claim.
“We have more than 9,000 Russian troops who — so-called — lost the way, crossing our Russian-Ukrainian border, bring with them hundreds and hundreds of tanks, armed personnel carriers, and killing Ukrainian civilians and attacking Ukrainian troops,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told CNN on Wednesday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking in Moscow before the Berlin talks, responded to Ukraine’s assertion with a firm denial — much like other denials made by Russian officials in recent months over similar allegations of armed intervention.
“As to the flow of troops and armaments, this is not the first time we hear something like that,” he said. “And each time I hear that I say, if you’re so confident about that, please present us with facts, but no one has been able to provide us with these facts.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry later issued a statement about the Donetsk trolley bus station violence, which it called “a crime against humanity (and) a great provocation aimed to undermine the efforts for the peaceful settlement of the crisis.”
“We demand an immediate investigation into the Donetsk crime, with participation from OCSE representatives,” the ministry said. “Everything must be done to stop Kiev from shelling cities in southeastern Ukraine and to prevent further senseless casualties among civilians.”
‘Destroying homes’
The civilian areas reportedly targeted by rebels Thursday were Debaltseve and Avdiyivka.
“Terrorists using Grad multiple launch rocket systems are targeting and destroying homes,” Abroskin, the Donetsk regional police chief, said on his Facebook page, adding that the extent of the devastation and the number of casualties were not yet known.
The OSCE, in an update posted Wednesday, cited numerous instances of shelling in recent days, with two hospitals in separatist-held territory among the buildings affected.
The local education chief in government-controlled Debaltseve said 860 children were no longer attending school because of shelling in the city Monday.
Unrest in Ukraine began with protests in the country’s capital last year after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych, favoring closer ties to Russia, dropped plans to sign a political and economic agreement with the European Union.
After months of protests and days of deadly clashes between demonstrators and security personnel in Kiev, Parliament ousted Yanukovych in February. Weeks later, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula.
In April, violence broke out in two Ukrainian regions that border Russia — Donetsk and Luhansk — as separatist leaders declared independence from the government in Kiev. Fighting has continued to roil the area since.