Truce violated, Ukraine foes say

KIEV, Ukraine – A cease-fire was declared in eastern Ukraine at a minute after midnight today, kindling slender hopes of a reprieve from a conflict that has claimed more than 5,300 lives.

But within two hours of the cease-fire’s scheduled start, the warring sides already were trading accusations of fresh attacks.

International attention will be focused in the coming days on the strategic railway hub of Debaltseve, where Ukrainian government forces have for weeks been fending off severe onslaughts from pro-Russian separatists.

The U.S. State Department said images from eastern Ukraine offer “credible pieces of evidence” that the Russian military has deployed larger amounts of artillery and rocket launchers around Debaltseve to shell Ukrainian forces.

“We are confident that these are Russian military, not separatist systems,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement Saturday.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko issued a cease-fire order in a live broadcast for all the country’s armed forces to hold their fire from one minute after midnight Kiev time.

Accusations of violations were quick to follow.

Ukrainian security services chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said one infringement was reported about 50 minutes after the deadline. Artillery salvoes were fired from an area that Nalyvaichenko said is under the control of a Cossack unit manned by Russian citizens.

Meanwhile, rebels accused the Ukrainians of deploying artillery shortly after midnight.

Donetsk News Agency, a separatist mouthpiece, cited senior rebel defense official Eduard Basurin as saying the Ukrainian forces garrisoned in Debaltseve fired artillery and mortars at rebel positions.

“In the interests of preventing the death of the civilian population, precise fire is being deployed toward the enemy’s positions,” Basurin was cited as saying.

The hours before the cease-fire were marked by ferocious battles around Debaltseve, as Ukrainian armed forces undertook desperate attempts to gain control over a highway linking the town to their rearguard.

Separatist fighters insist they have fully encircled Debaltseve, which they say allows them to claim the territory as theirs. But Poroshenko said in his televised address that the road to the town remains open and that Ukrainian troops there had been resupplied with ammunition.

Projectiles rained down Saturday afternoon on the government-held town of Artemivsk, 25 miles north of Debaltseve, striking a school, which rapidly burned to the ground.

Russia repeatedly has denied Western claims it has sent troops and equipment to aid the rebels. But on Saturday, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, posted on Twitter what he said were satellite photos showing Russian artillery systems near the town of Lomuvatka, 12 miles northeast of Debaltseve. The images could not immediately be verified.

In a telephone call with Poroshenko hours before the start of the cease-fire period, President Barack Obama expressed his “deep concern about the ongoing violence, particularly in and around Debaltseve.”

The cease-fire deal was hammered out in marathon talks this week between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her counterparts from Ukraine, Russia and France in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said failure to maintain the peace would cost the region and the people of eastern Ukraine “a high price.”

Poroshenko said Saturday his government would take urgent measures if the Minsk agreement collapsed.

“If there is no peace, we may have to take the decision to impose martial law,” he said. “In this event, martial law will be imposed not only in the Donetsk and Luhansk (regions), but across the whole country.”