Ukraine ceasefire deal in tatters as fighting intensifies

Kiev and pro-Russian rebels have blamed each other for intensifying fighting in eastern Ukraine and for the shelling of a Donetsk school playing field that killed two teenagers and injured four others.

Moscow also accused Ukraine’s pro-western leaders of “crudely” breaching a ceasefire and peace plan signed on September 5th in Minsk, which Kiev said the rebels had ripped up when holding “illegal” leadership elections last Sunday.

Fierce artillery fire rumbled around Donetsk airport in what the separatists' self-declared deputy premier Andrei Purgin called part of Ukraine's resumption of "all-out war" against rebel forces that allegedly receive major backing from Russia.

Mr Purgin claimed fighting had resumed along “75 per cent of the line of contact” between the militants and government forces. He also said the rebels would not hold peace talks with Kiev’s representatives for at least two weeks and would prepare their own “new version of the Minsk protocol”.

Ukraine’s military stated in response that it was “not taking any measures to escalate the situation in the zone of the anti-terrorist operation”.

“We remind you that the militants have painted their military vehicles in the colours of the Ukrainian army and put military insignia on their vehicles that are similar to those of the Ukrainian armed forces.”

The army said three soldiers had been killed and four injured in the preceding 24 hours. They blamed the separatists for shelling near Donetsk airport on Wednesday that killed two boys playing football and injured four others. The militants insisted the fire came from government-held positions.

Russia joined the rebels in lambasting Kiev, with the foreign ministry saying it was “now obvious that all agreements have been crudely violated by the Ukrainian side”.

Russian president Vladimir Putin discussed the "worsening" situation in Ukraine and Kiev's alleged "numerous breaches of the ceasefire regime" with his security officials last night, his spokesman said.

Ukraine’s pro-western leaders this week pledged to stop all state funding for rebel-held areas, except for the provision of energy and aid, and ordered army units to reinforce areas around rebel-held territory.

Border check

A so-called “administrative border” has been established to search cars and check passports on main roads running into the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

“This is Ukrainian territory, but given that militants are temporarily controlling it, we have to carry out the necessary checks,” said Sergiy Astakhov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s border guard service.

“It is also connected with the fact that armed Russians are freely entering these territories through checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Russian frontier that are controlled by militants. We have to take measures so that they cannot go beyond the zone of the anti-terrorist operation.”

The EU and US have threatened to tighten sanctions on Russia’s economy if it fails to help defuse the conflict in Ukraine, and existing measures have caused a sharp fall in the values of the rouble and Moscow’s stock exchange.

French premier Manuel Valls said yesterday "conditions have not been met" for Paris to deliver two high-tech Mistral warships to Russia.