SPARTAK, Ukraine – Shelling and other clashes between government forces and Russian-backed separatists threw the cease-fire agreement in eastern Ukraine into deepening peril Sunday, two days after it took hold.
At least two houses hit by artillery fire blazed in the rural village of Spartak, which lies just north of the main rebel-held city of Donetsk and adjacent to the airport.
A man whose house was struck by a shell said rebels had fired from a spot nearby, and that apparently provoked a attack from Ukrainian government troops.
A group of rebel fighters in the village danced and drank Sunday morning in celebration after what they said was a successful assault on a Ukrainian military encampment in the area. One said the group had captured eight government troops, though no captives could be seen.
The truce – signed on Friday by Ukraine, Russia and the pro-Russian rebels after five months of fighting that killed at least 2,600 civilians and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes – was shattered late Saturday by shelling on the outskirts of the coastal town of Mariupol. The City Council said Sunday that one civilian was killed and a serviceman wounded.
The rebels recently opened a new front on the coast in what many Ukrainians fear is an attempt to secure a land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed into Russia in March.
Amnesty International on Sunday condemned all sides in the grinding conflict, saying they have “shown disregard for civilian lives and are blatantly violating their international obligations.”
The 12-point cease-fire agreement, published Sunday by international monitors, calls for the withdrawal of all heavy weaponry, the release of all prisoners and the delivery of humanitarian aid to devastated cities in eastern Ukraine.
