Ukraine said Monday that separatist rebels fired on a refugee convoy near the eastern city of Luhansk.
“Many people were killed, among them women and children,” Andriy Lysenko, the National Security and Defence Council spokesman said in Kiev.
The exact casualty figures were not yet clear, he said in a statement.
Lysenko said the incident happened at around 9:40 am (0640 GMT), when rebels shelled the highway between Luhansk and the Russian border with “Grad” multiple rocket launchers.
A Ukrainian army spokesman, Anatoliy Proshin, said that the refugees had been travelling in a convoy of Ukrainian military vehicles, displaying white flags, the Ukrainskaya Pravda news site reported.
There was no independent confirmation of the incident, which was denied by rebel representatives.
“Such claims are pure propaganda,” Konstantin Knyrik, a spokesman for the separatists in eastern Ukraine, told Russia’s Interfax news agency. He added that there was no documented evidence.
The Ukrainian military said earlier Monday that it had retaken the area of the purported attack, southeast of Luhansk, from the rebels.
Knyrik also said that claims by the government forces that they had taken control of parts of Luhansk proper were exaggerated. “Fighting is ongoing, and control over territories changes constantly,” he was quoted as saying.
The city with a peacetime population of more than 400,000 has been cut off from water mains and electricity for more than two weeks. Dozens of civilians have been killed in artillery battles between rebels and government forces.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that a political settlement of the conflict was possible only if the Ukrainian government halted its military campaign.
“As long as Kiev seeks a forceful solution, international efforts … won’t have success,” Lavrov told reporters in Berlin, according to Russian news agencies.
Lavrov was speaking after four-party talks with his colleagues from Ukraine, Germany and France late on Sunday. He said that the ministers made no progress on the issue of a ceasefire, because the Ukrainians “keep making vague demands.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin denied that Kiev had made any “artificial demands.” He told the Interfax Ukraine news agency that the ministers agreed that the border with Russia needs to be secured so that no fighters or weapons pass into Ukraine.
A spokesman for German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the ministers plan to meet again following consultations with their governments.
The four foreign ministers did, however, reach an agreement on the delivery of Russian humanitarian aid to Luhansk.
A convoy of almost 280 lorries is standing at the Russian-Ukrainian border since Thursday.
Ukraine said over the weekend that it would recognize the convoy as humanitarian if it is delivered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). However, the ICRC has said that it still needed security guarantees to pass through territory held by pro-Russian separatists.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Angela Merkel said that the German chancellor is considering an invitation from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for crisis talks in Kiev.
Merkel’s office is looking into whether a programme for a visit can be arranged, the spokeswoman said in Berlin.
She also assured the three Baltic states of German support amid the growing tensions with Russia over Ukraine.
NATO will have “a much stronger presence” is the eastern part of the US-led alliance’s area than previously, Merkel said following a meeting with Latvian Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma in Riga.
This would include military manoeuvres, Merkel said. However, she again ruled out boosting NATO defence bases in the east.
The White House announced last week that US President Barack Obama will visit Estonia next month for meetings with Baltic leaders ahead of a NATO summit in Wales.
GNA
PDC
