Ukraine slips deeper into war as hostilities continue

Ukraine slips deeper into war as hostilities continue

The rebels said that four persons died on Sunday, which brings the death toll in the civil war in Ukraine to 20 over the past 24 hours.

According to some reports, missiles fired by the Ukrainian side hit two residential buildings near a school that has been closed since Wednesday. A public transportation garage was also hit, where one person died.

The volunteer battalion Azov, that fights on the side of Kiev, announced that the town of Uglegorsk was now controlled by the pro-Russian forces, while all Ukrainian Army and National Guard units had left.

This is taking place after the breakdown of the Minsk talks, with different information coming from three sides. Ukraine's representative, former President Leonid Kuchma said that "there was no room for further talks," the OSCE called for the negotiations to be continued and accused the rebels of failing to cooperate, while the self-proclaimed republics refuted the accusation as false.

"Missed opportunity"

OSCE Chairperson in Office and Serbia's Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Sunday that an opportunity for success had been missed at the Contact Group meeting in Minsk on Saturday, adding that the only positive thing was that the plan had not been rejected.

"The only positive thing is that the plan was not rejected, but that it was said that it would be considered, and that it would be decided in the coming days when the Contact Group would continue its work," Dacic told a news conference.

It is a shame that the meeting between representatives of Kiev, Moscow and pro-Russian activists from eastern Ukraine was not successful after Russia and Ukraine had agreed on a plan, since it was expected that it would be adopted without problem, he noted.

Representatives from Donetsk and Lugansk could not accept the plan because the leaders of the pro-Russian forces who signed the agreement in September did not come to the Minsk meeting, but some other people, who said that they could not sign the plan without consultations, he explained, stressing that another problem was the fact that event the things that had been signed were not being implemented.

There are no thoughs about a new plan for now, one that would go beyond the Minsk protocol, and no new meetings of the Contact Group have been scheduled, he remarked.

The OSCe currently has 400 observers in Ukraine, four of whom are from Serbia, he stated, adding that the goal was to have 500.