Kiev--Ukrainian rebels Tuesday accused government forces of killing three civilians in attacks launched hours before the start of talks in Paris on ways to halt the 15-month separatist war.
Kiev's Western-backed military command reported the death of one soldier and accused the pro-Russian rebels of launching the heaviest wave of mortar and artillery fire since the start of the year in one relatively peaceful region.
The daily bloodshed and destruction of housing underscores a repeated failure by diplomats to find a way out of a crisis that has killed 6,500 people and plunged East-West relations to a post-Cold War low.
It has also pushed Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek a closer alliance with China and build up Latin American military cooperation and trade -- two developments of particular concern to Washington and its own strategic plans.
Putin resolutely denies orchestrating the war to pay back Kiev for its February 2014 ouster of a Kremlin-backed leader who had ditched a landmark alliance with the European Union to instead maintain the ex-Soviet state's more traditional Russian ties.
Ukraine itself now threatens to turn into a frozen conflict that grows more deadly in the summer -- a season where forests provide better cover and ground movements are easier -- and cuts off cash-strapped Kiev from its main industrial base.
AFP
