Mariupol, Ukraine---Pro-Kremlin rebels in eastern Ukraine announced a major new offensive Saturday after heavy rocket fire killed at least 30 people in the government-held port of Mariupol, sparking international calls for Moscow to stop backing the separatists.
The local mayor's office said 97 people were also wounded in the strategic city by dozens of long-distance rockets that smashed into a packed residential district early in the morning and then again shortly after noon.
"Obviously, everyone in the city is very scared," Mariupol native Eduard told AFP.
A fellow resident named Pavlo described dazed survivors helping wounded victims to climb out of the concrete rubble of Soviet-era apartment blocks and navigate the streets strewn with shattered glass.
"Today, we launched an offensive against Mariupol," Russia's RIA Novosti quoted the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic's leader Alexander Zakharchenko as saying.
But he added a few hours later that his forces were still "saving their strength" and had "conducted no active operations in Mariupol".
His deputy had earlier denied responsibility for the civilian deaths and Zakharchenko did not refer directly to the rocket fire.
But he did call the potential capture of the industrial port "the best tribute possible for all our dead".
A spot inspection conducted by monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) concluded that the Grad and Uragan rocket fire came from two locations "controlled by the 'Donetsk People's Republic'".
- 'Reckless and disgraceful' -
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk immediately asked the UN Security Council to censure Russia for allegedly spearheading the militants' advance on the biggest pro-Kiev city left standing in the decimated war zone.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko interrupted his attendance at the late Saudi King Abdullah's burial to chair an emergency National Security and Defence Council meeting in Kiev on Saturday.
"We are for peace but also accept the enemy's challenge. We will defend our motherland the way real patriots do -- until a full victory," he said in a statement.
Western leaders watched with worry as violence once again threatened to spiral out of control in what has already been one of Europe's deadliest and most diplomatically-explosive crises since the Cold War.
US Secretary of State John Kerry led the condemnation over the "horrific" assault on Mariupol.
"We call on Russia to end its support for separatists immediately, close the international border with Ukraine and withdraw all weapons, fighters and financial backing," Kerry said during a visit to Zurich.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also urged Russia to "stop destabilising Ukraine," while German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the situation in Ukraine was "very dangerous".
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned in Brussels that the latest escalation "would inevitably lead to a further grave deterioration of relations between the EU and Russia".
Latvia, which holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency until July, called for an emergency meeting of the bloc's foreign affairs council next week.
Both the EU and the US have imposed sanctions on Russia over its role in the crisis, which began when deadly protests in Kiev last winter toppled Ukraine's Russian-backed president and saw the country anchor its future to the West.
AFP
