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 Sunday's offensive brought fighting close to the industrial city
of Donetsk, center of a pro-Russian rebellion, while shelling
intensified in other parts of the region known as "Donbass".
With attempts to restart peace talks stalled, pro-Russian rebels
have stepped up attacks in the past week and casualties have
mounted, including 13 civilians killed in an attack on a passenger
bus, which Kiev blamed on the separatists.
Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said the army's operation had
returned battle lines near the airport to the previous status quo
and thus not violated the 12-point peace plan agreed with Russia and
separatist leaders last September in Minsk.
"We succeeded in almost completely cleansing the territory of the
airport, which belongs to the territory of Ukrainian forces as
marked by military separation lines," he said.
Another military spokesman said the firing was continuing early on
Monday: "There is firing going on in the airport area and also at
various parts of the line of separation. The situation has not
particularly improved." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow
was concerned by what he called an escalation by Ukrainian forces
that did not contribute to peace efforts.
 He later said Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had rejected a
peace plan contained in a letter Russian President Vladimir Putin
sent him on Thursday.
"In recent days, Russia has consistently undertaken efforts as an
intermediary in regulating the conflict," Peskov said, according to
TASS news agency.
It said Putin's letter included a concrete plan for both sides to
withdraw heavy artillery.
Russian television channel NTV published the letter on Sunday
evening. In it, Putin proposed "urgent measures for the cessation of
mutual shelling, and also the rapid withdrawal by the sides in the
conflict of means of destruction with a caliber higher than 100 mm".
In an overnight statement, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry called on
Russia to sign with Ukraine a timetable for implementing the Minsk
agreement which included establishing Ukrainian control over the
joint border, withdrawal of foreign forces and heavy military
equipment from the region.
"We are convinced that this will allow us quickly to cease fire and
protect the civilian population from the firing from (separatist)
fighters for the past four months," it said.
"Ukraine steadfastly supports all the points of the Minsk agreements
and demands that Russia does also," it said.
OTHER VIOLENCE
Elsewhere in the region, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said two
brothers aged seven and 16 had been killed and their eight-year-old
sister wounded when a shell struck a house in the
government-controlled town of Vuhlehirsk, 60 km (40 miles) from
Donetsk.
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Spokesman Vyacheslav Abroskin said the shelling had come from the
direction of Yenakiieve, controlled by the rebels.
Poroshenko addressed several thousand people in Kiev late Sunday at
a peace march in memory of those killed on the passenger bus.
"We will not give away one scrap of Ukrainian land. We will get back
the Donbass ... and show that a very important aspect of our victory
is our unity," he said.
Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko blamed the shelling around
Donetsk on the Ukrainian army. "We're talking about Kiev trying to
unleash war again," Interfax quoted him as saying.
The ceasefire agreed in Minsk in early September has been regularly
violated since the start by both sides, and fighting has flared up
again since plans for peace talks last week were abandoned.
In Donetsk, a coal-and-steel city with a pre-war population of
almost 1 million, residents reported a sharp upturn in fighting.
The World Health Organization says more than 4,800 people have been
killed in the conflict.
Despite what Kiev and the West says is incontrovertible proof,
Russia denies its troops are involved or that it is funneling
military equipment to the separatists.
With its runways pitted and cratered, Donetsk airport has long since
ceased to function.
But its control tower and extensive outbuildings, battered by
shelling and gunfire, have taken on symbolic value, with government
soldiers and separatists hunting each other, often at close range,
in a deadly cat-and-mouse game among the ruins.
(Additional reporting by Jason Bush, and Pavel Polityuk, Writing by
Alessandra Prentice, Editing by Richard Balmforth and Timothy
Heritage)
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