Aid groups warn of deepening crisis as Nato states consider arming Ukraine

International aid agencies are warning of a deepening humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine, as Nato states consider supplying weapons to Ukrainian government forces that are locked in heavy fighting with Russian-backed separatists.

The United Nations said yesterday that by conservative estimates more than 5,350 people had been killed and more than 12,200 injured since fighting began in Donetsk and Luhansk regions last April. Civilians have been dying at a rate of more than 10 a day during a resurgence in hostilities over the last three weeks.

The UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said both sides in the conflict were to blame for “indiscriminate shelling of residential areas in both government-controlled territory and in areas controlled by the armed groups”.

“Bus stops and public transport, marketplaces, schools and kindergartens, hospitals and residential areas have become battlegrounds . . . in clear breach of international humanitarian law,” he said.

Kiev and the militants blame each other for the collapse of a fragile ceasefire, and the rebels have vowed to mobilise an additional 100,000 fighters to push back Ukrainian forces that they claim are intent on killing all those who support their bid to break with Kiev and forge closer ties, or even unite, with Russia.

The heaviest fighting is now around the government-held rail and road hub of Debaltseve, and Kiev, the US and Nato accuse Russia of sending troops and advanced tanks, artillery pieces and air-defence systems to help the insurgents.

Russian weaponry

Moscow

denies the allegations but refuses to close its border with rebel-held areas of Ukraine and has failed to explain how the militants have come to possess modern Russian weaponry and seemingly inexhaustible supplies of ammunition.

"The situation is getting worse by the day," said Michael Masson, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine.

“People are hiding in basements for days on end and those who dare to venture out to collect basic aid risk being wounded or killed.”

Stéphane Prévost, the head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières in Ukraine, said “civilians and medical staff on both sides of the front line are bearing the brunt of this conflict”. “At the same time, the rapidly deteriorating security conditions mean that access for organisations to provide humanitarian aid to people who desperately need it is severely limited.”

Direct negotiation

Russia insists it is not party to the conflict and wants Ukraine’s pro-western government to negotiate directly with the militant leaders – the same approach that Moscow takes in supporting separatist regions of two other ex-Soviet states, Georgia and Moldova.

The Kremlin claims Ukraine’s revolution last year and pivot to the west are part of a US-orchestrated plan to weaken and surround Russia, and it has warned Nato members that providing lethal military aid to Kiev would only inflame the conflict.

Debate is intensifying in Washington over whether to supply weapons to Ukraine. In Europe, Nato members Poland and Lithuania have said they may sell arms to Kiev, while Germany and Hungary said this week that they would not.