Fifteen people were killed in shelling in the east Ukrainian port city of Mariupol yesterday, Ukraine's interior ministry said, an attack Kiev blamed on separatist rebels and the Russian military.
A witness described the shelling to reporters as enough to knock the paint off his house.
The deaths follow the separatists' rejection of more peace talks and as fighting surged to its most intense in months. The United Nations said on Friday 262 had been killed in the previous nine days.
Government-held Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, lies on a coastal route from the Russian border to Crimea, which was annexed by Russia from Ukraine last March.
The city council said rockets fired by rebels from long-range GRAD missile systems struck a multi-storey building and caused fires to break out.
Oleksander Turchynov, secretary of Ukraine's national defence council, described the incident as "another bloody crime against humanity committed by the Russian military and the bands of terrorists under their complete control," in an online statement.
The attack started in the early morning, 76-year-old pensioner Leonid Vasilenko, who lives in the eastern suburbs of Mariupol, said by telephone.
"The walls were shaking, the window frames were shaking, paint started to crumble off the house. I hid in the basement. What else can you do? I took the dog and the cat. In the basement you could hear the earth tremble," he said.
The interior ministry said 15 people had been killed and 76 injured. Separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko later confirmed they had launched the attack.
Despite international calls for a ceasefire, Zakharchenko vowed on Friday his forces would push on with a new offensive, as the UN said the conflict, which began in east Ukraine more than nine months ago, was now in its "most deadly period" since a peace deal was agreed last September.
The Kiev military reported "high-intensity" rebel attacks on government positions.
"Illegal armed groups are trying to widen the boundaries of controlled territories and correct the demarcation line to their advantage," said spokesman Andriy Lysenko.
Ukraine says its troops are holding the line against the separatists after suffering a symbolic and morale-sapping setback last week when they withdrew from the main terminal at the airport in Donetsk, the biggest city in the east
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article