A woman is comforted by her son near the body of her daughter after shelling yesterday in the town of Makiyivka. Ukrainian forces pressed on with their offensive yesterday in the war-torn east despite calls for restraint following claims that ‘dozens’ of fleeing civilians were killed in a strike on their convoy.

AFP/Kiev

Ukraine said yesterday that fighting had erupted in the heart of major rebel stronghold Lugansk, as the bodies of 17 civilians fleeing the city were recovered from wreckage of their destroyed convoy.
As government forces cut deeper into insurgent territory, Kiev and Moscow announced that Presidents Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko will hold their first face-to-face talks in months next week with pressure piling on to end four months of brutal fighting (see report above).
Kiev’s military claimed for the first time that street battles with pro-Russian insurgents were raging in the centre of second-largest insurgent hub Luhansk after one outlying district was “liberated”.
If confirmed, any advance by Ukraine’s army into Luhansk, which has endured brutal shelling and weeks without running water or electricity, would be a major breakthrough for Kiev in the bloody conflict that has claimed over 2,100 lives since April.
Adding to this toll, the military said it had recovered the bodies of 17 civilians burned alive when a convoy evacuating them from Luhansk was hit by a rebel mortar strike on Monday.
Pro-Kremlin insurgents have denied the allegations, which could not be independently verified.
A fresh push to ease tensions between Russia and Ukraine was underway after weekend talks between the top diplomats from both countries failed to make any breakthrough.
Kiev has claimed the Kremlin is ramping up weapon supplies in a bid to stave off defeat for the rebels and could be readying to invade as a last throw of the dice, allegations rejected by Moscow.
In the industrial eastern region, deadly shelling also rained down around the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk as government troops tightened their grip on rebels clinging on.
An AFP photographer in the adjoining city of Makiyivka saw the bodies of one woman and two men killed by shelling sprawled in the streets.
Smoke could also be seen billowing from the nearby town of Yasynuvata, where Kiev said its troops were conducting a “mopping-up” operation.
Shelling rang out around Donetsk, which had a pre-war population of 1mn, as locals again queued for water after fighting cut supplies over the weekend.
Poroshenko said on Monday that Ukraine was readjusting its military strategy following fresh rebel claims they were receiving troop reinforcements from neighbouring Russia to prop up their struggling insurgency, which has forced more than 285,000 people to flee.
He said that government forces were “regrouping” as they sought to continue the offensive.
A military spokesman said one soldier was killed and 28 injured over the past 24 hours.
A controversial Russian aid convoy was meanwhile still stuck waiting to be checked near Ukraine’s restive border as haggling over whether it could cross dragged on.
Red Cross representative Laurent Corbaz headed to Moscow yesterday to discuss with Russian officials the delivery of humanitarian aid to east Ukraine.
The Red Cross – which is meant to oversee the delivery of the cargo – says that it has not yet received security guarantees on how it will cross rebel territory.
“We have no date, no hour” for when the convoy may go to the Ukrainian side, Paul Picard, a monitor for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation ((OSCE) in Europe at the border, said.