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Heavy fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels puts ceasefire in doubt
By Anthony Faiola and Daniela Deane
Kiev, Ukraine: The heaviest fighting in a series of truce violations in Ukraine's restive east strained the tenuous 10-day-old cease-fire between the Kiev government and pro-Russian separatists, with both sides blaming the other on Monday for attacks that included the shelling of residential buildings.
Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko on Monday accused the rebels of attacking checkpoints and other positions in the east in intensified fighting over the weekend. The Ukrainian military, he said, was forced to respond.
"The attacks of Russian mercenaries have become more active to provoke our units to retreat from their positions, but these actions are under control," he said.
On Monday, the rebels, on the official website of the separatist outfit known as the Donetsk People's Republic, claimed that Ukraine had "repeatedly violated the cease-fire." They said the Ukrainian military fired on separatist militias as well as residential targets in the eastern city of Donetsk, killing 20 people. Lysenko denied that the Ukrainian military had shelled "any residential areas and settlements."
Tensions in the east heightened as Ukrainian officials claimed hundreds of other cease-fire violations over the weekend, including an assault by more than 200 rebels near the Donetsk airport.
"Terrorists continue to provoke military action," the Ukraine Crisis Center reported in Kiev.
The centre said rebels broke the shaky cease-fire 249 times and shelled Ukrainian military positions 49 times. It said two drones were spotted over the weekend, one traveling toward the strategic port city of Mariupol, where heavy fighting was recently reported.
The United States is concerned about renewed fighting in eastern Ukraine since the cease-fire went into effect September 5 and has no details about the content of a Russian convoy that entered and left Ukraine over the weekend, a State Department official said.
The recent heavy fighting has claimed several civilian casualties, according to spokesmen from the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday. Almost 3000 people have died in the five-month-old conflict.
Russia still has about 25,000 troops along its long border with Ukraine and more than 3,000 soldiers inside the country, according to the Ukrainian government. Russia denies sending troops into Ukraine.
The United States and other NATO countries are starting military exercises in Ukraine on Monday. Ukraine has recently sought to join the NATO alliance, a move that Russia has condemned.
Secretary of State John Kerry is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday in Paris at a conference on Iraq.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are discussing the deployment of more monitors to Ukraine to observe the fragile cease-fire, the Crisis Centre reported.
The OSCE said a monitoring team was on patrol in an area of Donetsk on Sunday when mortar shells exploded close to it, forcing the team to immediately leave the area.
The Ukrainian prime minister accused Russia on Saturday of planning to destroy his country and said that only NATO membership would enable Ukraine to defend itself from this external aggression.
The United States and European Union have imposed heavy sanctions on Russia, including fresh penalties last week, because of its involvement in the conflict. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told members of the country's ruling party Monday that Russia is being tested by the sanctions but that it must respond calmly.
"When a series of our partners, if they can be called that, test Russia's strength through sanctions and all kinds of threats, it is important not to succumb to the temptation of so-called easy solutions and to preserve and continue the development of democratic processes in our society, our state," Medvedev said in a televised speech.
Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March after pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow seized control of the region and held a referendum on independence. Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine began taking over cities and towns in April.
The Washington Post