Ukraine on Tuesday accused rebels and Russia of destroying a fragile three-day-old ceasefire after insurgents armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades stormed a flashpoint town and engaged thousands of troops there in intense combat.
A Ukrainian serviceman stands on top of a KRAZ armoured vehicle close to a car of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Soledar, Donetsk region, on February 17, 2015
"The hopes of the world for peace are being destroyed," the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential administration, Valeriy Chaly, told a news conference in Kiev.
"Russia and the DNR (the rebels' self-styled breakaway Donetsk republic) are not abiding by the agreement" underpinning the truce, he said, warning that the situation was careening towards "further escalation".
Fierce fighting was raging in the streets of Debaltseve, a strategic railway hub between the main rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Lugansk, according to both Kiev officials and pro-Russian rebels.
"Street battles are continuing and the rebels are attacking the town in groups with support from artillery and heavy armour," the Ukraine defence ministry said in a statement. "Part of the town has been captured by the bandits."
Rebels quoted by Russian-language news agencies said their fighters rushed in from the north and the east of Debaltseve and had taken its vital railway station.
Many of the Ukrainian troops were killed and taken prisoner, they claimed.
Some 80 percent of the town was now in rebel hands, the "defence minister" of the separatist Donetsk republic, Vladimir Kononov, told Russian news outlet LifeNews.
Ukrainian officials denied the rebel casualty and prisoner claims, but admitted that an unspecified number of soldiers in an ambushed supply convoy were seized after a battle outside Debaltseve on Monday. They also said 10 soldiers had been killed since the start of the truce on Sunday, several of them in or around Debaltseve.
- Unknown number of casualties -
Russia and the rebels claim some 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers are in the town, and thousands of trapped civilians are cowering in cellars with little food or water.
"There are wounded and killed but we cannot confirm the numbers yet as the battles are still continuing," said Ilya Kiva, a Kiev-loyal deputy regional police chief inside the town who was reached by telephone.
Up until Tuesday, the heavily armed rebels who had all but surrounded Debaltseve had been pounding it with rockets and mortars.
The separatists have for days blocked access to the town to journalists and monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) seeking to enter to verify conditions.
Tuesday's combat dealt a harsh blow to the shaky, European-mediated ceasefire.
Both sides have refused to pull back their heavy weapons all along the frontline in Ukraine's east because of what each said was violations of the truce by the other.
- Alleged Russian support -
That step, and others, had been agreed by Kiev and the rebels last week after painstaking peace talks in Belarus between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France.
Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of deploying troops and tanks to support the separatists in the 10-month conflict that has killed more than 5,660 people. Moscow denies that and describes the Russian fighters seen in Ukraine as "volunteers".
Ukraine's representative to the UN in Geneva, Yuriy Klymenko, said a "so-called humanitarian" convoy of 176 Russian trucks crossed into Ukraine on Sunday and many of them was were believed to be carrying cargo such as fuel for "Russian-provided tanks".
The return to violence has unsettled world powers and agencies, with the European Commission expressing "concern" and a UN official in Geneva, Rupert Colville, saying "we are alarmed by reports of continued shelling in Debaltseve".
The US State Department said "the United States is gravely concerned by the deteriorating situation in and around Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine".
The pro-Russian rebels have argued that Debaltseve was well in their territory behind the frontline so should not be included in the ceasefire agreement.
But Ukraine described it as a finger of territory it controlled and therefore subject to the truce.