A Ukrainian serviceman of the Donbass volunteer battalion rides a swing after a clean-up operation in the Lysychansk district of the Lugansk region, controlled by pro-Russia separatists.
DPA/Moscow/Kiev
Russia yesterday accused Ukrainian forces of attacks against residential areas in the country’s east and warned of a further escalation of the conflict.
“The fighting that was once again provoked by Kiev leads to the unavoidable escalation and undermines international efforts to end the bloodshed,” the Foreign Ministry said in Moscow.
The pro-Russian separatists said earlier that 16 people were killed and more than 100 injured by artillery shelling in the eastern city of Luhansk on Tuesday.
The Luhansk city council said on its website that one civilian was killed and 14 were injured, but did not say who carried out the attack.
Ukraine blamed the separatists for the shelling. Military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin said the attack was carried out to discredit the Ukrainian army.
“They never had any other aims, they are bandits and terrorists,” Matyukhin said on Ukrainian TV.
Ukraine’s Security Council spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said that three soldiers were killed and 15 injured in the 24 hours up yesterday. He did not mention any shelling in Luhansk.
Ukraine accuses Russia of supporting the separatists with heavy weapons, volunteer fighters and regular troops - charges that Russia denies.
Fresh efforts for a diplomatic solution have been fruitless as fighting surged over the past days.
The EU’s 28 leaders said Tuesday that the bloc’s foreign ministers should explore new sanctions at a meeting today.
According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia would stick to the peace accords reached in Minsk in September.
In an article published yesterday, Lavrov also stressed that “it is essential that (Ukraine) retains its neutral status” to prevent it from further disintegration. The Ukrainian government has said that it wants to join Nato.
Lavrov warned that slapping new sanctions against Russia would aggravate the situation. “They will not make us forego what we think is right and just,” he said in the Serbian journal Horizons, republished on his ministry’s website.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in a phone call with US President Barack Obama that Russia should be held accountable for supporting the separatists and failing to comply with the Minsk agreements, the White House said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that he sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, demanding that Moscow fulfil the Minsk accords while asking for the release of Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko.
Savchenko, who was captured by separatists last year, is currently in a Moscow prison and accused of aiding the killing of two Russian journalists. According to her lawyer, Mark Feygin, she has been on a hunger strike for more than 40 days.
