Dozens of people, including women and children, were killed fleeing fighting in eastern Ukraine today when their convoy of buses was hit by rocket fire, military spokesmen said.
Ukraine accused pro-Russian rebels of targeting the convoy, which it said was bearing white flags when it was hit near the eastern city of Luhansk. The separatists denied responsibility.
“The rebels were expecting the convoy and destroyed it entirely,” military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told journalists. “We haven’t been able to count the number of victims ... dozens (were killed).”
The convoy had been in an area of fierce fighting between government forces and the separatists when it came under fire from rebel Grad and mortar launchers, the spokesmen said.
"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.
Describing the attack as a “bloody crime”, Mr Lysenko, said: “A lot of people have been killed including women and children. The number of the dead is being established.”
A rebel leader denied his forces had the military capability to conduct such an attack, and accused Kiev forces of regularly attacking the area and also using 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.
Another rebel spokesman denied any civilian convoy had been struck, challenging the Kiev authorities to produce evidence.
The Kiev military reported new successes overnight, building on a weekend breakthrough when troops raised the national flag in Luhansk, a city held by pro-Russian separatists since fighting began in April.
Troops blockaded or recaptured rebel-held positions after international talks in Berlin failed to reach agreement on a ceasefire. Nine soldiers were killed.
Western sanctions against Moscow have failed to stem what NATO says is a steady supply of military equipment and men sent from Russia to help the rebels. Russia denies sending support, saying the rebels have seized equipment from the Ukrainians.
President Petro Poroshenko called on his top security advisers today to address claims by the rebels to have received new stocks of heavy Russian military equipment and 1,200 trained Russian fighters.
Referring to the heavy loss in life among government forces, he said: “Today we need regroup our forces to defend our territory and continue offensive actions by the army.”
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 but no progress had been made in his talks in Berlin on Sunday with the Ukrainian, German and French foreign ministers on a ceasefire or a political solution.
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.
Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin, who was at the Berlin talks, said: “Russia must close the border and stop shelling. If you have mercenaries and weaponry coming through the border from the Russian federation how can you reach a ceasefire?
“It’s not about terminology or conditions. It’s about substance. If you want peace, you have to use peaceful means not the means of war,” Mr Klimkin said, according to a ministry Twitter post.
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, desertion, espionage, attempts on the lives of the leadership and sabotage.
“Introducing the death penalty is not revenge, it is the highest degree of social protection,” the rebels’ website quoted a senior rebel leader, Vladimir Antyufeyev, as saying.
Kiev’s military says desertions and defections are now posing a big problem for the separatists and hitting their morale despite competing claims by the rebels that they are receiving more arms from Russia and trained fighters.
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 leaders through further support for the rebels, he risks wider economic sanctions from the United States and European Union.
Western sanctions have targeted Russia’s financial and energy sectors as well as dozens of people close to Putin, and Russia has retaliated by banning a wide range of U.S. and EU food imports.
Moscow has struggled to control subsequent price rises and said on Monday it would allow imports from former Soviet Belarus and Kazakhstan of food made from Western raw materials which fall under the embargo.
Vedomosti daily newspaper said Moscow might ban imports of cars, among other things, if the United States and the EU take additional action against it.
The separatist conflict erupted after Russia seized the Crimean peninsula in March 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.
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.
The military said it suspected the rebels had used a powerful Russian-made Uragan missile system for the first time southeast of Donetsk near the village of Novokaterinivka. “The Russian mercenaries are in panic trying to get out of these places,” it said. The rebels made no immediate comment.
The separatist news outlet Novorossiya said Ukrainian forces had shelled the village of Khryashchevatoe overnight with mortars to tighten the circle round Luhansk.
Moscow says 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.
In Donetsk, some people said their water had been shut off as of 9pm local time (1800 GMT) the night before, and early todau local shops had already sold out of large bottles of water. “There’s been no water since last night,” said Maria (23) but others in the city said water was still flowing.
Reuters