2015-08-18 18:46:00

Heavy shelling kills nine in Ukraine


(Vatican Radio) Tensions remain high in eastern Ukraine after at least nine people died in an all-night-long artillery between government troops and Russia-backed rebels, casting  more doubts on the already shaky cease-fire.

Listen to Stefan Bos' report: 

Residents rushed to burning homes armed with buckets of water in a desperate attempt to extinguish  raging fires.  

Fire fighters in eastern Ukraine seemed overwhelmed amid the worst artillery exchanges between government troops and Russia-backed separatists in a conflict that the United Nations says has already claimed as many as 6,800 lives.

Rebels said artillery fire killed three people in a front line town of Horlivka and two in the rebel-held capital of Donetsk since Monday.

Ukrainian officials reported two civilian deaths on their side, in a suburb of Mariupol on the Black Sea.

TROOPS KILLED

The Ukrainian Security and Defense Council also reported two troops killed and six injured overnight.

This latest shelling comes after failed talks between Ukraine, the rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which were supposed to agree on further steps to withdraw weaponry.

Reporters in Donetsk say they have witnessed weaponry on the move in the past few days while salvos of incoming and outgoing Grad rockets are frequently heard.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the Ukraine's central government in Kiev of derailing the recent peace talks and suggested that the increased shelling seemed the beginning of a new Ukrainian offensive.

Kiev denies wrongdoing.

PUTIN CRITICIZED

And Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has blamed Russian president Vladimir Putin for escalating tensions during a visit Monday to Crimea, which Russia annexed last year.

While in Crimea Putin on Monday presided over a meeting the Kremlin billed as a discussion about reviving the resort region’s tourism industry.

The United States has expressed concern over what the State Department said looked like preparation for fresh hostilities.

OSCE observers have warned about heavy weaponry that has gone missing after it was withdrawn from the front lines.

The monitors were reportedly denied access to two locations in rebel-held areas where heavy caliber weapons were supposed to be kept amid ongoing fighting.








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