Ukraine truce in jeopardy after shelling by govt and rebel forces
[KYIV] A civilian was killed amid overnight shelling in Ukraine’s Mariupol port and pro-Russian separatists said they suffered losses under fire from government forces, jeopardising a truce intended to stem months of bloodshed.
The woman died in an attack in the Skhidny district, where three people were also injured, the Mariupol city council said on Sunday on its website. Ukrainian troops also fired at separatist positions overnight, killing one rebel in the village of Makiyivka and several more in the town of Zuyevka, the self-declared people’s republic of Donetsk said on Sunday.
“At the moment, there’s no talk of ending the cease- fire,” Volodymyr Polyovyi, head of Ukraine’s National Security Council, said on Sunday in Kyiv. Even so, he said shelling overnight by the rebels constituted a violation of the truce.
The deaths are the first since the warring factions agreed to a ceasefire two days ago in the wake of a counter-offensive unleashed last month by the insurgents.