Militants began shelling two civilian areas in the Donetsk region early Thursday, Ukraine’s state-run Ukrinform reported, as the months-long conflict in the country’s east showed little sign of easing.
The reported shelling comes after talks Wednesday in Berlin between the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France aimed at resolving the crisis through the implementation of a peace deal agreed last year.
Ukraine’s government has this week accused Russia of sending troops across the border to support the pro-Russian rebels who are battling government forces for control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russia denies the claim.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, in an interview Wednesday with CNN in Davos, repeated 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,” he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking in Moscow before the Berlin talks, responded to Ukraine’s assertion with another denial.
“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.”
Reporting the shelling Thursday morning, Ukrinform cited comments from Donetsk regional police chief Vyacheslav Abroskin.
“Terrorists using Grad multiple launch rocket systems are targeting and destroying homes,” Abroskin said on his Facebook page, adding that the extent of the devastation and the number of casualties was not yet known.
The areas targeted were Debaltseve and Avdiyivka, he said.
After Wednesday’s talks, the foreign ministers of the four nations involved condemned the continuing violence and called for the peace deal agreed in Minsk, Belarus, last September to be respected.
Fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk region “has severely escalated causing the loss of many human lives including civilians. This must stop immediately and the regime of quiet must be restored,” it said.
They said “tangible progress” must be made on full implementation of the Minsk pact ahead of a planned peace summit.