Kiev---Ukrainian President Poroshenko on Wednesday called for European peacekeepers to enforce a shattered ceasefire deal in east Ukraine after a flashpoint strategic town fell to a fierce assault by pro-Russian rebels.
Some 2,500 exhausted government troops retreated from Debaltseve -- a key railway hub linking the main separatist-held cities of Donetsk and Lugansk -- after rebels ignored a supposed truce to seize control of the town.
The loss was a bitter blow to the Ukrainian army and left a last-ditch peace plan hammered out by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France hanging by a thread.
Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council approved a decision to invite UN-mandated peacekeepers into the country to monitor the frontline with the rebels and Ukraine's porous border with Russia.
"We see the best format would be a police mission from the European Union. We are sure this would be the most effective and best guarantee for security," Poroshenko said, adding that he hoped consultations on the force would start quickly on the decision is approved by parliament.
Ukraine and the US have accused Russia of piling troops and weapons in to spearhead the devastating assault on Debaltseve. Moscow denies the claims.
Poroshenko said six soldiers were killed and more than 100 injured in what he earlier described as "a planned and organised withdrawal" he ordered from Debaltseve.
But haggard soldiers seen arriving in the neighbouring town of Artemivsk on tanks and other vehicles, or on foot, contested that characterisation.
"We didn't hear anything about an order to pull out. We only found out about it when our heavy armour started leaving," one soldier told AFP, declining to give his name or unit.
"We should have pulled out earlier," another said bitterly.
- Soldiers taken prisoner -
There was no official casualty toll from the ferocious street-to-street battles that had taken place in the town since the rebels stormed it on Tuesday, but the bodies of at least 13 soldiers were seen delivered to the local morgue.
A row of makeshift coffins stood in the snow outside waiting to transport the corpses, still in camouflage uniform.
A spokesman for the rebels' military, Eduard Basurin, said the town was "completely under the control" of the insurgents, with just "scattered" pockets of resistance that were being neutralised.
Basurin claimed more than 300 government soldiers had been taken prisoner. Ukrainian officials conceded some were in rebel hands but would not say how many.
Amnesty International expressed concern about the treatment of the prisoners, noting evidence of brutality by both sides towards captives.
The situation in Debaltseve -- and the status of an estimated 5,000 civilians trapped there -- was impossible to verify. Journalists and monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were unable to get into the town.
- Blow to truce -
Debaltseve's fall dealt a heavy blow to the European-brokered truce agreed by all sides in the Belarus capital Minsk last week and endorsed by the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
The ceasefire was meant to be the first step towards quelling a conflict that has killed more than 5,600 people since erupting in April 2014.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman admitted in Berlin that the rebel offensive put a "heavy strain" on hopes for peace.
But France insisted the truce "was not dead".
Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Poroshenko were to speak by telephone later Wednesday.
AFP
