Summary Fighting between govt forces and pro-Russian rebels left dozens of civilians dead on Wednesday.
DONETSK (AFP) - Fierce fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels left dozens of civilians dead on Wednesday with artillery pounding central Donetsk as Ukrainian troops pushed on with a bloody offensive.
Deadly battles to crush the ailing rebellion appeared to intensify ahead of a fresh round of diplomacy that will see the presidents of Russia and Ukraine meet next week for the first time in months.
Clashes in and around the besieged main rebel stronghold of Donetsk killed 43 civilians in the past 24 hours, local authorities said.
AFP journalists saw fierce mortar fire tear through the centre of the city close to the state-of-the-art stadium of football team Shakhtar Donetsk, as Ukrainian troops tightened the vice on insurgents holed up in the mining hub.
Street battles were raging in Ilovaysk, a key railway hub some 45 kilometres (30 miles) east of Donetsk, with authorities saying nine soldiers died in the area in the last 24 hours, including a US national who fought for a Ukrainian volunteer battalion.
In the city of Makiyivka, adjoining Donetsk, residents were woken up by shelling in the early hours of Wednesday.
"What bastards," said local 81-year-old Maria Semyonovna, who said she was planning to go out in the morning but was stopped by sounds of explosions.
"We are at home here and they are bombing us," she told AFP. "When is it going to stop? Where can one go?"
The renewed offensive comes as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko gears up for a meeting in Minsk with Russia's Vladimir Putin, the heads of Belarus and Kazakhstan, and EU officials next week.
That encounter will come after German Chancellor Angela Merkel jets in to Kiev on Saturday for her first visit to Ukraine in a show of support for the country's pro-Western leadership.
Poroshenko this week said the army was regrouping to continue its push on the separatist hubs of Donetsk and Lugansk and to fragment the rebel-held territory to stop the flow of weapons from Russia.
"Both (Kiev and Moscow) are trying to improve their starting positions" ahead of their Minsk encounter, said political analyst Oleksiy Golubutskyi. "If Ukraine manages to gain control over Lugansk or even Donetsk before these talks, then the issue of demilitarising them disappears."
