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 With Ukrainian government forces tightening the noose on
pro-Russian separatists, shelling rocked Donetsk, sending frightened
residents rushing for cover, witnesses said.
It was not immediately clear if the artillery was fired by
government or rebel forces.
Two shells landed 200 metres (660 feet) from the Park Inn Radisson,
one of the city's main hotels, shattering windows. The blasts opened
up a yawning hole on the third floor of an apartment block and left
a broad crater on the pavement.
Nearby, a body covered by a sheet lay stretched out on the
blood-stained ground.
A huge Russian convoy carrying 2,000 tonnes of water, baby food and
other humanitarian aid drove through southern Russia towards the
frontier, while Kiev repeated it could not enter until Ukrainian
authorities had cleared its cargo.
The caravan of 280 trucks left the Moscow region on Tuesday, looking
to take aid to Luhansk region, in eastern Ukraine, where the main
city is held by the separatists.
 The pro-Western Kiev government says the humanitarian crisis is
partly of Moscow's making and has denounced the dispatch of aid as
an act of cynicism. It is also fearful that the operation could
become a covert military intervention by Moscow to prop up the
rebels who appear on the verge of defeat.
Moscow, which denies charges - also voiced by the West - of arming
the rebels with tanks, missiles and other heavy military equipment,
has dismissed as "absurd" suggestions it could use the convoy as a
cover for invasion.
In Geneva, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red
Cross, which would be responsible for distributing the aid in
Ukraine, said: "The question of border crossing procedures and
customs clearance (for the convoy) still have to be clarified
between the two sides."
A senior Ukrainian presidential aide said that the Russian cargo
could be taken into the country only under the auspices of the Red
Cross and on completion of all border formalities.
"Ukraine will not allow onto its territory any accompanying escort
for the cargo and any repetition of attempts to send in so-called
peacekeepers," said the aide, Valery Chaly.
BORDER DOUBTS
Reuters journalists following the convoy said on Thursday it was
heading south from the city of Voronezh towards Rostov-on-Don and
was no longer seeking entry through Ukraine's Kharkiv region as had
first been assumed.
Ukrainian authorities had indicated that they did not want the
convoy moving through the government-controlled north-east rim,
apparently concerned it might provoke trouble.
The question now was whether the trucks would head for one of the
many parts of the border under rebel control on the Ukrainian side -
something which would make checks by Ukrainian border authorities
difficult, if not impossible.
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"If decisions are taken to bring the humanitarian aid in through
areas of the border which are temporarily under the control of the
terrorists, the cargo will all the same have to be looked at by
Ukrainian border guards and transferred to representatives of the
Red Cross," said military spokesman Andriy Lysenko on Thursday. It
was not immediately clear how this could happen.
Relief agencies say people living in Luhansk and in Donetsk, the
region's main industrial hub, are facing shortages of water, food
and electricity after four-months of conflict in which the United
Nations say more than 2,000 people have been killed.
In Donetsk, people poured out of their offices into the stairwell of
the city's main administration building after loud explosions nearby
triggered an evacuation warning.
A short while later, the whistling sound of incoming shells were
swiftly followed by at least two further blasts.
Liliya Chelina, 54, lived in the apartment block whose wall was
smashed by a projectile. "It came straight into the apartment. Thank
God I was not in the kitchen," she said.
"My husband promised me that shells would never hit our house, only
large buildings. But look at what has happened."
A woman called Tamara, who showed a deputy’s card for the
self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said she believed the
separatist fighters had fired the shells. "One of the fighters said
they had done it," she said.
The separatist Internet news outlet Novorossiya said Ukrainian
government forces hit targets in the Leninsky region of Donetsk and
have struck regions to the east and southwest of the city in
previous days.
The news outlet said hardest hit areas were Makiyivka's Hirnitsky
neighbourhood as well as areas between Donetsk and Dokuchaevsk which
lies south of the city.
Ukrainian troops have been slowly encircling Donetsk, the regional
hub with a peace-time population of nearly a million.
(Additional reporting by Maxim Shemetov and Dmitry Madorsky,
southern Russia; Writing by Richard Balmforth; Editing by Crispian
Balmer)
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