Pro-Russian separatists are building up forces and weapons in Ukraine's south east the Ukrainian military said yesterday.
Sources in Kiev said the government was bracing itself for the possibility of a rebel attack on the port city of Mariupol.
The Kiev military accused Russia on Friday of sending more tanks and troops towards the rebel-held town of Novoazovsk, further east along the Sea of Azov coast from Mariupol, expanding their presence on what it fears could be the next battlefront.
A rebel attack on Mariupol, a city of half a million people and potentially a gateway to Crimea, which Russia annexed last March, would almost certainly kill off a European-brokered ceasefire. The latest reports from the battlefield came as former UK defence secretary, Dr Liam Fox, said Britain and other western powers should start supplying sophisticated weaponry to the Ukrainian government to enable it to fight back against the heavily armed separatist rebels.
Dr Fox warned that the credibility of the entire Nato alliance was at stake as the Russian-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine had raised the "shadow of conflict" in Europe for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
"Specifically what we should be giving them is encrypted communications because at the moment the old systems that they are using make them a sitting target for the Russians whose technology is much bigger," said Fox who remains an influential figure in Conservative Party circles.
"Secondly, they need anti-tank weapons because the Russians are using new, better-armoured vehicles against which the Ukrainians have no defence. Thirdly they need UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) for targeting.
"We should be giving them the weapons they need to defend themselves against an external threat. This is about their territorial integrity."
Britain and other European powers have so far drawn back from arming Kiev, fearing it would simply fuel the conflict, although US president Barack Obama has indicated he would consider supplying weapons to Ukraine if the Russians do not pull back.
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