Ukraine fighting intensifies ahead of peace summit

Intense fighting in Ukraine, including a rocket strike on Kiev’s military headquarters in the east, killed at least 20 people on Tuesday on the eve of a four-way peace summit. Pro-Russia rebels sought to encircle railway hub Debaltseve, and Ukrainian forces launched a counter-offensive around the strategic port of Mariupol as diplomats scrambled to finalise a deal to end the 10-month war at the summit in Minsk planned for Wednesday. Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said rockets from a Tornado multiple launch system for the first time hit the military’s command centre in Kramatorsk, a regional capital behind the frontlines considered to be under firm government control and far from rebel positions. Local officials said the strike killed at least six people and wounded 21 in nearby residential areas. Foreign ministry official Dmytro Kuleba tweeted that the rockets were Tornado, ‘Russia’s newest Multiple Launch Rocket System. Ukraine simply doesn’t have it.’ Kiev and the West accuse Moscow of supplying and training the heavily armed separatists, but Russia denies the claims. Rebels say their weapons have been captured from Ukrainian forces, although Kiev has cited numerous cases of the insurgents using advanced weapons that are only available from Russian arsenals. Another seven Ukrainian soldiers and seven civilians were killed in fighting over the last 24 hours, Kiev officials and rebels said, including in Debaltseve which the insurgents claim to have surrounded. Despite growing diplomatic momentum, Ukrainian forces took control of three villages east of Mariupol, around 90 kilometres south of the rebel stronghold Donetsk, and fierce fighting was going on for control of two more, senior interior ministry advisor Zoryan Shkiryak said. Rebels, diplomats and mediators gathered in the Belarussian capital to bridge gaps on a possible peace deal, which the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany hope to sign in Minsk on Wednesday. Rebel negotiator Denis Pushilin told the separatists’ news agency that he was heading to Minsk for talks with mediators from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe as well as Russian and Ukrainian representatives. French president Francois Hollande and German chancellor Angela Merkel have been conducting frantic diplomacy, taking the ‘last chance’ deal to Poroshenko and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Merkel was in Washington Monday for lengthy talks with the US president Barack Obama on the initiative to defuse fighting that has killed at least 5,400 people since April. Agence France-Presse . Kiev