A woman cries while her relative is evacuated by bus from the town of Makeyevka, Ukraine.
AFP
Ukraine accused pro-Russian rebels of killing dozens of civilians fleeing the war-torn east on Monday, as crisis talks between Kiev and Moscow failed to halt months of bloodshed.
Kiev's military said insurgents using Russia-supplied weapons shelled adults and children in a convoy with white flags on a road from the restive city of Lugansk, leading to "dozens of dead".
The allegations came after marathon talks in Berlin brought no consensus on how to end the conflict, and President Petro Poroshenko said Kiev was pressing on with its drive to oust rebels, having "laid siege to cities most controlled" by them.
Ukraine's security spokesman Andriy Lysenko said insurgents deliberately targeted the civilians, whose transport was clearly marked, adding that the exact number of casualties was still unclear.
"The convoy had white flags and was marked as civilian," he said at a briefing. Kiev believes it was shelled from mortar guns and Grad rocket systems supplied from Russia and was "completely destroyed".
"We ask that any videos from the scene are not released to the public, because they are atrocious," he added.
The United States "strongly" condemned the attack on the convoy, said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf in Washington.
"All sides must take every precaution to protect innocent lives. We are unable to confirm reports of who was responsible for the shelling and rocketing," she added.
Lugansk has been the hardest-hit city still controlled by rebels, where water and power have been cut off for more than two weeks and food is becoming increasingly scarce.
The rebel leader of neighbouring "Donetsk People's Republic", Alexander Zakharchenko, flatly denied any attacks on civilians, blaming Kiev's own troops for the strike.
"Not a single convoy of refugees was shot at in the Lugansk region," he told journalists at a briefing.
A five-hour meeting in Berlin between the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany on Sunday broke up without agreement on how to end more than four months of conflict that has killed more than 2,100 people and left the region facing a humanitarian catastrophe.
Moscow has demanded that Ukraine government forces halt an offensive against main separatist strongholds, while Kiev accuses Russia of pouring in more arms to save the unravelling insurgency.
Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov complained that "we cannot report positive results" in the talks with his counterpart from Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin, France's Laurent Fabius and Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Klimkin said Russia "is not ready to recognise the facts" of the continuing flow of weapons and mercenaries across the border.
He added that Kiev was looking forward to a "very interesting visit" by German Chancellor Angela Merkel Saturday, one day before Ukraine celebrates Independence Day.
The Ukrainian presidency said Monday evening that rebel boasts of receiving Russia-trained fighters and various weaponry including tanks forced Kiev to "look at the military operation in new light" and "continue the offensive".
