Not less than 15 people have been killed and 46 others injured in a series of rocket attacks by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine’s government-held port of Mariupol, police there have said. BBC covered the story:
The Grad rockets hit a market in a residential area in the east of the city, the police chief said.
A spokesman for the rebels denied that they had any involvement in the attack, calling it “blatant misinformation”.
More than 5,000 people have died in fighting in the east since April.
The rebels have seized a large swathe of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. More than a million people have been displaced.
The main pro-Russian rebel leader in eastern Ukraine, Alexander Zakharchenko, said on Friday that his troops were on the offensive and that he did not want truce talks with Kiev.
A ceasefire agreed in Minsk in September but never fully took hold. Many hoped that the lower level of hostilities it introduced would last, but the BBC’s David Stern says that the fighting is beginning to approach what was seen last summer.
