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 Government forces kept up pressure on the separatists in fighting
overnight into Monday, blockading or recapturing rebel-held
positions after international talks failed to reach agreement on a
ceasefire.
Ukrainian military spokesmen said rebel missile fire on the buses
had caused an unknown number of casualties.
"A powerful artillery strike hit a refugee convoy near the area of
Khryashchuvatye and Novosvitlivka. The force of the blow on the
convoy was so strong that people were burned alive in the vehicles -
they weren't able to get themselves out," military spokesman Anatoly
Proshin told Ukrainian news channel 112.ua.
Nine Ukrainian troops were killed in the overnight fighting.
A senior rebel leader denied his forces had the military capability
to conduct such an attack, and accused the government of regularly
attacking the area including with Russian-made Grad missiles.
"The Ukrainians themselves have bombed the road constantly with
airplanes and Grads. It seems they've now killed more civilians like
they've been doing for months now. We don't have the ability to send
Grads into that territory," said Andrei Purgin, deputy prime
minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.
Reports of fresh successes by the Kiev military followed a
breakthrough for government forces at the weekend when troops raised
the national flag in Luhansk, a city held by the pro-Russian
separatists since the onset of the conflict in April.
Despite Western sanctions, the crisis has defied attempts at an
international settlement and turned into the worst between Russia
and the west since the end of the Cold War.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said all issues around a
humanitarian convoy sent by Moscow to relieve needy areas of eastern
Ukraine had been resolved at international talks in Berlin.
But he said no progress had been made in his talks with the
Ukrainian, German and French foreign ministers on a ceasefire or a
political solution. "We are not able to report on positive results
on reaching a ceasefire and on the political process," he told a
news conference.
Russia says it would like a ceasefire to allow aid to get to people
trapped by the fighting. A 280-truck convoy sent by Russia and
carrying tonnes of humanitarian aid has been stalled at the
Ukrainian border since last week, as Kiev has insisted on
formalities so it can be properly distributed by the Red Cross.
With the rebels now apparently losing ground by the day to
government forces and with the leadership of Ukrainian President
Petro Poroshenko likely to be keen for a victory by Independence Day
next Sunday, it is doubtful Kiev sees any advantage in agreeing to a
ceasefire now.
PROBLEMS IN THE RANKS
In a further sign that the rebel leadership may be facing deep
problems in its ranks, it said it was setting up military tribunals
and bringing in the death penalty for a string of offences including
treason, espionage, attempts on the lives of the leadership and
sabotage.
The possibility that the rebels might be facing a rout presents
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who boosted their ambitions by
speaking of the creation of a "New Russia" in eastern Ukraine, with
a difficult choice.
If he remains silent and allows their defeat, he risks losing face
before the "hawks" at home and the Russian people who have largely
applauded Moscow's annexation of Crimea in March. But by trying to
maintain pressure on Kiev's pro-western leadership through further
support for the rebels, he risks wider economic sanctions from the
United States and European Union.
Western nations have imposed sanctions on Moscow including on its
financial and energy sectors, and put dozens of Russians close to
Putin on a list of targeted individuals.
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Russia has retaliated by banning a wide range of U.S. and EU food
imports. Vedomosti daily newspaper said on Monday that Moscow might
step up its action to include a ban on imports of cars, among other
things, if the United States and the EU take additional action
against it. HEAVY DEATH TOLL
The separatist conflict erupted after Russia seized the Crimean
peninsula following the ousting of a Moscow-backed Ukrainian
president. Separatists occupied key buildings in towns across the
Russian-speaking east, declaring "people's republics" and saying
they wanted to join Russia.
The United Nations said this month that an estimated 2,086 people,
including civilians and combatants, had been killed in the conflict.
The death toll has nearly doubled since the end of July, when
Ukrainian forces stepped up their offensive as they gained more
ground against the rebels.
While calling for surrender by the rebels, Kiev has been steadily
tightening the squeeze in their two main strongholds of Donetsk and
Luhansk and cutting off their communication lines. The rebels have
reshuffled their top leadership with at least two Russians leaving
their posts to make room for Ukrainians.
The impression that the rebels are now on the back foot was
strengthened by the Donetsk leadership's announcement that it would
bring in military tribunals with the right to pass the death
sentence on those who committed serious offences such as espionage
and sabotage.
The announcement, issued on the Donetsk's rebels website, quoted
leading rebel officials as saying that other serious violations
including looting would also be dealt with harshly.
"Introducing the death penalty is not revenge, it is the highest
degree of social protection," a senior rebel leader, Vladimir
Antyufeyev, was quoted as saying.
A military spokesman in Kiev said government forces had pressed the
separatists in overnight fighting, encircling the rebel-held town of
Horlivka between Luhansk and Donetsk, and taking control of smaller
settlements in eastern Ukraine.
A military statement said it suspected the rebels had fired back
with a powerful Russian-made Uragan missile system southeast of
Donetsk near the village of Novokaterinivka, their first use of the
weapon.
It gave no indications of casualties on either side and the rebels
made no immediate comment.
"The Russian mercenaries are in panic trying to get out of these
places," the Ukrainian military statement said.
The Kiev government has accused Russia, which is opposed to Kiev's
pro-Western policies, of allowing a steady flow of tanks, missile
systems and armored vehicles to the rebels.
Moscow denies this. It says that the Ukrainian government, with
backing from its Western allies, is subjecting thousands of
Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine who reject Kiev's rule to
artillery bombardments and shortages of water and power.
(Additional reporting by Natalia Zinets and Alessandra Prentice in
Kiev, Thomas Grove in Donetsk and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow;
Writing by Richard Balmforth; editing by David Stamp)
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