Intense fighting continued near two cities in eastern Ukraine, raising further doubts about whether the ceasefire deal agreed in Minsk has any chance of success.
According to the Minsk plan the ceasefire will start on Sunday but, rather than abating, the conflict appeared to escalate on Friday, said The Guardian newspaper.
The Ukrainian defence ministry said pro-Russia forces were trying to take the cities of Debaltseve and Mariupol before the truce begins. On Friday afternoon, the Guardian witnessed incoming and outgoing heavy weapons fire on the contested highway leading to Debaltseve, which was lined with burned-out trucks.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian military said 11 soldiers had been killed and 40 wounded in 24 hours and there were reports of numerous civilians being killed.
The increase in violence took place as it emerged that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, sought to delay agreement on a Ukrainian ceasefire at talks in Minsk because he wanted pro-Russia separatists to capture the railway hub in Debaltseve.
Three of the four leaders at the talks in Minsk – the German chancellor, Angela Merkel; France’s president, François Hollande; and Ukraine’s embattled president, Petro Poroshenko – dashed to the Brussels summit from Belarus.
Briefing 26 EU heads of government on the fraught negotiations that resulted in a truce that was supposed to start on Sunday, the Minsk participants painted a picture that failed to inspire confidence.
Witnesses to the discussion said all the EU leaders were sceptical about the success of the Minsk peace plan, not least because Putin had resisted pressure for a ceasefire. He hoped to delay the truce by 10 days, the summit heard, in order to force the surrender of up to 8,000 Ukrainian troops who are surrounded in Debaltseve by pro-Russia separatists.
Putin was said to have made it clear that Debaltseve had to fall. The Russian president has also said publicly that the separatists had the Ukrainian forces encircled and that “of course, they expect [the Ukrainians] to lay down their arms and cease resistance”.
While the 13-point peace plan is complex and relies upon political developments at least a year away, Poroshenko’s priority was to get a ceasefire. The Ukrainian leader delivered an emotional report to the summit on the plight of eastern Ukraine, witnesses said.
He said he had not slept for two nights. Before the Minsk talks, he went to a hospital in the eastern town of Kramatorsk, where he was deeply affected by the sight of a four-year-old boy who had lost limbs in a shelling by separatist forces.
On the Ukraine deal, the mood of the EU summit was sombre, with the leaders concluding that Putin was more interested in war than in peace.
On Friday, Poroshenko was similarly pessimistic. “I don’t want anyone to have any illusions and so I am not seen as a naive person: we are still a very long way from peace,” he said during a visit to a military training ground. “Nobody has a strong belief that the peace conditions which were signed in Minsk will be implemented strictly.”