Putin is reinforcing rebels, Kyiv claims
Russia has sent a further 20,000 troops to bolster separatist rebels in and around east Ukraine as constant front-line skirmishes threaten to return the country to war.
The government in Kyiv said that there were now 70,000 Russian or rebel fighters in the region, up from about 50,000 in the summer. Petro Poroshenko, the president, accused the Kremlin of using its military campaign in Syria to “divert the world’s attention from ongoing aggression in Ukraine”. At the centre of the renewed hostilities is the town of Mariinka, on the outskirts of Donetsk, where both sides are dug in as temperatures