Breaches threaten shaky Ukraine ceasefire

A shaky truce in Ukraine was already at risk on its second day Feb. 16 with both the Kyiv government and pro-Russian separatists accusing each other of attacks holding up an agreed pull-back of heavy weapons from the frontline.
       
"There is no question at the moment of us withdrawing heavy weapons" because of persistent rebel attacks, a Ukrainian military spokesman, Vladyslav Seleznyov, told AFP.         

"The withdrawal of military hardware can only happen under certain conditions and one of them is a full ceasefire," Eduard Basurin, a spokesman for the defence ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic was quoted as saying by the rebels' official news agency.         

The main hotspot was Debaltseve, a key transport hub located between Donetsk and Lugansk, where fighting is unabated.
      
AFP journalists and an OSCE monitoring team near Debaltseve observed shelling in the area. They were unable to enter the town because of the hostilities between thousands of government troops inside, and the rebels who have mostly surrounded it.
       
A municipal official who fled the town, Natalia Karabuta, told AFP that around 5,000 civilians were still trapped inside, with little food and water.
       
After a lull on Sunday, "today (Monday) it all flared up again, and non-stop explosions were heard," she said.
       
The separatists also said Ukrainian troops had fired on Donetsk airport as journalists were being shown around. No casualties were reported.
       
Kyiv said five Ukrainian troops have been killed and 25 wounded in the town of Shyrokin, near the coastal city of Mariupol, since the ceasefire started.
       
Under the terms of a European-mediated peace plan agreed...