Donetsk // The shelling of a bus and clashes in Ukraine’s separatist east left 34 people dead on Thursday in one of the deadliest days of the nine-month war.
In the worst incident, 13 civilians died when shelling hit a trolleybus in the morning in the rebel bastion of Donetsk, with Kiev alleging that ultimate blame for the tragedy rested with Russia.
The Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused Kiev of committing the “monstrous crime” to derail peace efforts.
Pro-Russian separatists paraded around 20 captured Ukrainian soldiers through the streets of Donetsk to the scene of the strike, where residents hurled pieces of glass and shouted abuse at them.
The bus attack came just hours after a call for a ceasefire at peace talks in Berlin and as the toll from the conflict surpassed 5,000 dead, with a million people forced from their homes.
Another 10,000 people have been wounded by daily rocket and mortar strikes on the industrial region’s residential districts, Michael Bociurkiw of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe told Ukrainian radio.
After intensified clashes at Donetsk airport in recent days, Ukraine’s military abandoned the main part of the facility that it had held since late May.
The airport has become the symbolic prize of the conflict, with the army and pro-Russian rebels continuously battling for control of the devastated site.
“Yesterday evening we made the decision to leave the new terminal,” military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov said on Thursday.
The trolleybus shelling was among the bloodiest incidents involving civilians in recent months in a conflict that has devastated the former Soviet republic’s industrial heartland and brought Ukraine’s economy to its knees.
Stunned Donetsk residents gathered around the shredded remains of the bus, with bloodied bodies of elderly victims sprawled in their seats hours after the attack and local militias cautiously inspecting the damage.
The city’s emergency services said 12 people died in the bus and another was killed in a passing car.
One resident who lives nearby said shelling in the area the day before had targeted a military academy housing a headquarters for rebel fighters, killing two militia members.
“Today as the shelling began, some people managed to escape from the trolleybus stop,” said Maksim, a 35-year-old teacher.
“There are several ambulances and [rebel] military police here. Children are very scared.”
Russia’s government-controlled television immediately blamed the attack on Kiev’s forces, while Ukraine said the rebels were responsible and added that ultimate responsibility rested with Moscow.
“Russian terrorists again committed a horrible act against humanity,” said Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. “And responsiblity for this is borne by the Russian Federation.”
The strike occurred just south of Donetsk’s city centre, with concerns having been raised over shelling that has at times moved closer in from the airport north-west of the city, putting civilians in increasing danger.
Thursday’s violence came hours after the foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France ended a crisis meeting in Berlin with a joint call to cease hostilities, but no breakthrough agreement to stop the bloodshed.
The talks had been held against the unpromising backdrop of fresh clashes and after Ukraine’s president accused Moscow of fuelling the war with fresh troops and tanks.
The four top diplomats in their statement could agree to “call on all sides involved to cease hostilities and to withdraw heavy weapons” from a demarcation line agreed upon in the widely flouted September truce signed in Minsk.
The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said the main achievement was that all sides had agreed that the demarcation line agreed in the Minsk pact would form the basis for the pull-back of heavy arms on both sides.
The talks had “tested the patience of all participants”, he said after meeting Mr Lavrov, who left the talks first, as well as Ukraine’s Pavlo Klimkin and Laurent Fabius of France.
The US secretary of state John Kerry accused the rebels of attempting “a blatant land grab”, while Washington’s UN envoy Samantha Power said Russia was pursuing an “occupation plan” in the east.
Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, speaking on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said the upsurge in fighting after a nearly month-long lull was prompted by a new surge of Russian forces and weapons.
“We have more than 9,000 troops of the Russian Federation on my territory, including more than 500 tanks and heavy artillery and armed personnel carriers,” he said.
Moscow strongly denies supporting the insurgents despite Nato satellite images purporting to show its forces’ presence in Ukraine.
* Agence France-Presse
