Reported artillery attack on Mariupol threatens Ukraine cease

Ukraine's cease-fire appeared to be under pressure just over a day after it was declared as shelling was reported near the southeastern city of Mariupol.

The port has been the focus of an offensive by pro-Russian separatists in recent days that has reversed the gains of Ukrainian government forces, who had encircled the major rebel-held strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Reporters from the BBC and Reuters reported hearing explosions in the eastern part of the city early Sunday. The Reuters reporter said he saw a truck, a gas station, and an industrial facility on fire within the city limits. The reporter also saw trucks carrying pro-Kiev militia volunteers, as well as tanks and armored personnel carriers racing in the direction of the eastern part of the city.

A Ukrainian officer told the news agency, 'There has been an artillery attack. We received a number of impacts. We have no information about casualties.'

The Washington Post reported that Ukraine's Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, had accused Russia of violating the cease-fire, saying the rockets had been fired at Ukrainian positions 16 times from Russian territory.

'Are you surprised that [Vladimir] Putin is treacherous?' Avakov reportedly wrote in a statement on his Facebook page, referring to Russia's president. 'This has not canceled our determination to defend Mariupol.'

Earlier Saturday, the presidents of Ukraine and Russia said the cease-fire was mostly holding, but the truce still appeared fragile as both sides of the conflict claimed violations.

A statement from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's office said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed steps 'for giving the cease-fire a stable character' in a telephone conversation Saturday.

But, it said, both leaders assessed the cease-fire as having been 'fulfilled as a whole.' A separate Kremlin statement about the call said, 'There was a mutual satisfaction with the fact that the sides of the conflict were overall observing the cease-fire regime.'

Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's national security council, told reporters that rebels had fired at Ukrainian forces on 10 occasions Friday night after the cease-fire took effect.

In Donetsk, the largest city controlled by the Russian-backed separatists, the night passed quietly - a rarity after several months of daily shelling in residential areas. But Alexander Zakharchenko, the top separatist leader from Donetsk, told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the cease-fire had been violated with two rounds of shelling in the town of Amvrosiivka, about 30 miles southeast of Donetsk.

'At this time the cease-fire agreement is not being fully observed,' he said. He didn't say when the supposed breach occurred.

Lysenko said Ukrainian forces were strictly observing the cease-fire and suggested that Zakharchenko's claim was a provocation.

Meanwhile, the International Committee for the Red Cross said on its Twitter account that its workers had tried to deliver food aid to the city of Luhansk, which had endured weeks of heavy fighting, but turned back after shooting northeast of the city. It did not give further details.

Earlier Saturday, the mayor's office in Donetsk said there had been no reports of shooting or shelling there although some shelling had been heard late Friday afternoon. The city council of the second-largest rebel-held city of Luhansk, which had endured intense fighting for weeks, also reported the night was quiet.

Ukraine, Russia and the Kremlin-backed separatists signed the cease-fire deal Friday in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, in an effort to end more than four months of fighting in the region. The negotiators also agreed on the withdrawal of all heavy weaponry, the release of all prisoners and the delivery of humanitarian aid to devastated cities in eastern Ukraine.

If the ceasefire holds, it would be a landmark achievement for both sides. Fighting between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian government troops has ravaged the already teetering Ukrainian economy, claimed at least 2,600 civilian lives and left hundreds of thousands homeless, according to United Nations estimates.

The country also faces escalated tensions between the Russian-speakers who predominate in the rebel east and the Ukrainian-speakers in the central and western reaches.

In a sign of the simmering anger, the head of one of Ukraine's two main Orthodox churches on Friday issued a fierce rebuke of Putin, claiming the he, like the Biblical Cain, was under the influence of Satan.

'For the sake of his pride, he continues to multiply evil,' wrote Patriarch Filaret, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchate.

That church competes for influence in Ukraine with another Orthodox faction that is under the Moscow Patriarchate.

Western leaders voiced skepticism over Russia's commitment to the deal. A previous 10-day cease-fire, which each side repeatedly accused the other of violating, yielded few results at the negotiating table.

contributed to this report. Click for more from Reuters. Click for more from the BBC. Click for more from The Washington Post.



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