The latest reported clashes came one day after a special monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe saw several of its armoured vehicles torched outside its headquarters in Donetsk.
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At least four cars were set on fire in the rebel-held city of Donetsk, causing reinforced glass on their windows to crack and paint to peel off.
Ukrainian forces have reportedly repelled a rare tank assault by pro-Russian rebels that threatened to usher in a unsafe escalation to the 16-month war.
The attack came at around 2.30 am on Sunday (2330 GMT Saturday) with observers hearing the tyres bursting in the blaze, the OSCE said in a statement.
“We know that representatives of the OSCE mission recently have given a lot of information that is unfavourable to the unlawful armed groups who today have occupied Donetsk”, he said at a briefing in Kiev on Sunday. “It seems that this sort intimidation is aimed at stopping OSCE from reporting what is going on in the area”, said Alexander Hug, deputy head of the OSCE’s Monitoring Mission to Ukraine.
The attack follows a protest of about 300 people outside the OSCE’s hotel in rebel-held Donetsk on Thursday, when demonstrators held up banners criticising the “silence and blindness” of the mission and sprayed red liquid from a hose onto the ground. Both sides regularly accuse the other of violating the terms of the peace agreement and casualties are reported nearly daily.
“200 insurgents used tanks to storm” the village of Novolaspa, which lies between the de facto rebel capital of Donetsk and the strategic port town of Mariupol on Ukraine’s southern coast, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said.
Amid the turmoil, Ukraine’s government has banned the screening of films featuring Russian actors on a blacklist. Those banned include French-born actor Gerard Depardieu, who became a vocal supporter of Russian Federation after taking citizenship in 2013 and last month was barred from entering Ukraine for five years.
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Kiev refers to its eastern campaign as an “anti-terrorist operation” designed to quash a revolt devised by the Kremlin and backed by Russian troops – a charge Moscow resolutely denies.
