IT was the most expensive item on the Euro 2012 budget.

Upgraded at a cost of £530 million for the European football championships, today the shell-smashed ruins of Donetsk airport stand as bitter testimony to the pointlessness of trying to seek a battlefield solution to the crisis in Eastern Ukraine.

Yesterday, there were conflicting reports as to just who controlled which parts of the terminal complex named after composer Sergei Prokofiev, a native of eastern Ukraine.

According to Ukraine's defence ministry, government forces had withdrawn from the new terminal but retained control of southern parts of the airport and he conceded six soldiers had died and 16 were wounded in the latest fighting with Russian-backed separatists.

But there were other casualties too. In central Donetsk, 13 people were killed when a bus was hit by shelling. Almost instantly the blame game over these civilian deaths began, the Ukrainian government pointing to separatists and the Russian Foreign Ministry insisting Ukrainian troops were responsible for a "grave provocation".

If there is any consensus right now on the crises it's that it is worsening daily and may have moved to a crucial juncture. Yesterday, Geoffrey Pyatt the US ambassador to Ukraine said he believed the recent escalation could constitute a "turning point" in the conflict.

Nato chiefs have also warned of what they said was evidence of heightened Russian involvement in the fighting. According to US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, Nato's supreme allied commander Europe, fighting was now more intense in some places than it was before September's Minsk ceasefire agreement.

"The situation along the line of contact in Ukraine is not good. The fighting has intensified to essentially pre-agreement or pre-stand down levels and in some cases beyond," Gen Breedlove said.

He also confirmed Nato monitors were beginning "to see the (heat) signatures of air defence systems and electronic warfare systems that have accompanied past Russian troop movements into Ukraine.

Kiev itself insists Russia has more than 9,000 soldiers fighting alongside the rebels, a claim Moscow denies. This numbers game and tit-for-tat accusations of external intervention is likely to take on even more significance in the months ahead with reports surfacing that American troops will deploy to Ukraine this spring to begin training four companies of the Ukrainian National Guard. While the number of troops as yet remains undetermined, they are likely to be heading to the Yavoriv training area near the city of Lviv about 40 miles from the Polish border. Though the decision to deploy the troops is dressed up in the language of diplomatic niceties, with them helping "reform" police forces and "maintaining rule of law" few doubt it is a serious effort on Washington's behalf to bolster Ukraine's military capability.

All this is being funded from the congressionally-authorised Global Security Contingency Fund (GSCF), which was requested by the Obama administration in the fiscal 2015 budget to help "train and equip the armed forces of allies around the globe". Where this will lead is anybody's guess but Washington's latest move will only further rankle Moscow.

Putting the question of external intervention aside however, it's worth pausing for a moment to assess the significance of events around Donetsk airport these last few days, especially the Ukrainian army's apparent retreat.

Now little more than a heap of ruins, the airport might seem of little strategic importance were it not for the fact that a disproportionate symbolic significance has been attached to the battle surrounding it from the outset.

During last April and May as I passed through its terminal and fighting around Donetsk grew, it was rare to meet a local person not immensely proud of this jewel in the crown created for the country's hosting of Euro 2012.

As the battle for the airport moved into its immediate environs, the fighting rapidly took on a near mythological status for many Ukrainians with a garrison of its troops holding off separatist attackers for eight months and becoming a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.

Badly in need of a morale-boosting model of heroism after the loss of Crimea and Moscow's military support for the separatists, many Ukrainians seized on the fighting men who defended the airport.

These soldiers quickly became known as "cyborgs," so dubbed reputedly by separatist fighters confronted by the defenders' seemingly superhuman tenacity and capacity for survival in the face of superior odds.

As the very word came to inhabit Ukrainian websites extolling these fighters' indomitable spirit, one of the country's online dictionaries even went as far as to recognise it as "word of the year" for 2014 .

Hardly surprising then that over the last few days reports of the fall of Donetsk airport have sparked a similar online outpouring. This time however the response is one of mourning and anger as users post tributes to fallen defenders and outraged denunciations at the failure of generals and politicians to avoid the defeat.

How able Kiev will be in reassuring such people that this is only a minor battlefield setback remains to be seen. As this war escalates, other significant battles still lie ahead.