Fighting rocks eastern Ukraine

(MENAFN- Arab News) NETSK: Intense fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine killed dozens of civilians soldiers and rebels as Kiev pressed on with an offensive on Tuesday including near the wreckage of Malaysian flight MH17.Shells hit the center of Donetsk a city with a pre-war population of nearly a million people where residents fear they will be trapped on a battlefield between advancing Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed rebels who have vowed to make a stand.Russia repeated accusations that Kiev's forces had fired across the border from eastern Ukraine into Russian territory with assault rifles and grenade launchers.'We officially demand Kiev stop firing at the sovereign territory of the Russian Federation" the foreign ministry said in a statement.In Brussels European Union finally agreed Tuesday to impose broad economic sanctions against Russia hoping to force Moscow to reverse course in Ukraine EU officials said.The new measures impose restrictions on the finance defense and energy sectors so as to increase the cost to Russia of its continued intervention and support of pro-Moscow rebels in Ukraine.'A political accord has been reached on the package of economic sanctions" an EU official said after the 28 member state ambassadors met for most of the day.Up to now the European Union has imposed asset freezes and visa bans targeted at people and entities firms utilities or local authorities it believes to have stoked the Ukraine crisis or profited from it.Many EU countries among them Germany and Italy have major economic ties with Russia which also supplies the bloc with a third of its gas needs making it difficult for Brussels to follow Washington's lead and adopt more punishing sanctions on Moscow.However the alleged shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by pro-Moscow rebels using a Russian-made missile changed sentiment radically and pushed the idea of broader and tougher economic sanctions to the top of the EU agenda.The United States is drawing up fresh sanctions against Russia for its role in fueling the crisis in Ukraine top US diplomat John Kerry warned Tuesday.'We are in the process of preparing additional sanctions with Europe" Kerry told reporters shortly after the EU finally adopted broad economic measures against Moscow.But he added that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'still has a choice going forward with respect to his ability to be able to have an impact with the separatists." Ukrainian forces have been pushing rebel units back toward their two main urban strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk and have sought to encircle them in several places.The government says its forces have retaken several villages in the rolling countryside near where the airliner crashed on July 17 killing all 298 passengers most of them Dutch.In Donetsk the body of a dead man lay in rubble behind a badly damaged 10-story residential building close to the city center hit by shelling. The side of the building was splintered. Rebels at the scene placed body parts on a nylon sheet and carried it on a stretcher to a green van.'There that's their 'separatists'. That's their 'rebel commander'" said a distressed woman in her 60s gesturing toward the body. 'They are killing neighbors. They are killing people ordinary people." Another middle aged woman who gave her name as Katarina charged out of the building next door carrying two bags.A UN monitoring mission in Ukraine says there has been an alarming buildup of heavy weaponry in civilian areas of Donetsk and Luhansk including artillery tanks rockets and missiles that are being used to inflict increasing casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure.The UN said in a report this week that use of such weaponry could amount to a violation of international humanitarian law.'There is an increase in the use of heavy weaponry in areas that are basically surrounded by public buildings" said Gianni Magazzeni head of the UN office's branch that oversees Ukraine.