Ukraine civilians suffer in renewed fighting as truce talks collapse

At least 19 soldiers and civilians have been killed in clashes across eastern Ukraine as peace talks collapsed amid renewed fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels.

Ukraine's military said Sunday that 13 soldiers had been killed over the past 24 hours, raising the military death toll to 28 in the last two days, according to the AFP news agency. Six civilians died in fighting in rebels' self-declared Donetsk People's Republic and in towns that remain under Kiev's control in the Luhansk region, both sides said.

Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford, who is in Donetsk, reported hearing a "barrage of shelling" on Sunday that forced people to take cover.

"The streets are virtually deserted, and those people that can are hiding in their basements," he said, adding that many have been trapped in their homes without running water or electricity.

Yevdokiya Bugay, an 86-year-old pensioner from Yenakievo, was pulled out from her destroyed house. "I'm trembling. I live alone. I was sitting in the corner, and I only just survived," she told Al Jazeera.

The deaths followed the collapse of truce talks on Saturday in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. Ukraine's representative and separatist envoys each accused the other of sabotaging negotiations.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which took part in the Minsk negotiations, along with envoys from Ukraine and Russia, said rebel delegates had not been ready to discuss key points of the peace plan.

"In fact, they were not even prepared to discuss implementation of a ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons," the OSCE said in a statement.

Instead, representatives from the separatist rebels called for a revision of an earlier Kremlin-backed peace plan signed in September that has been the basis of all negotiations, the OSCE said in a statement. The rebels said they want to redraw the demarcation line between the two sides to include the gains they have made.

Kiev rejected that demand and said the rebels have thrown future peace talks into doubt.

"Unfortunately, the peace process is now under threat," Valeriy Chaly, the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential administration, wrote on his Facebook page.

Denis Pushilin, a negotiator for separatists in Donetsk, said they would not take part in ceasefire talks unless the government declared a truce and stopped its attacks. If not, the rebel leaders would have to remain focused on the fighting, he told Interfax.

“Firing by Ukrainian government troops has to stop, because our leaders are fully involved in repelling attacks,” Pushilin said.

As leaders traded blame, civilians faced increasingly dire conditions in the east, where most of the fiercest fighting has been focused around the strategic town of Debaltseve, a railway hub between the rebel bastions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where rebels are trying to encircle government forces.

Ukraine military spokesman Volodymyr Polyovyi said that "constant battles" were ongoing around the town but denied rebel claims that they have some 8,000 government troops trapped.

Civilians who managed to flee the fighting describe terrible conditions in the town, which was once home to 25,000 people. They said the water and electricity had been cut and remaining inhabitants lived in underground shelters.

In Donetsk, Reuters reported, a witness saw the body of a young man stretched out on a street in the city center, killed after a shell struck a nearby wall. Nadezhda Petrovna, 68, a neighbor, said the man was trying to run away from the attack when a shell landed in front of him.

"It's like this every day, people are getting killed, we are sleeping fully dressed so we can run into the cellar, this is becoming unbearable," she said. 

There was no word on when renewed negotiations might take place after the collapse of Saturday's talks.

Over 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict, and the actual death toll is likely far higher, the United Nations said last month. The announcement came as advocates warned that human rights in eastern Ukraine were "deteriorating rapidly."

Anti-government protests began in Kiev's Maidan Square in November 2013 and resulted in the election of a new president and a strongly pro-Western government. The change in political direction, and Moscow’s vehement opposition to that shift, precipitated the current conflict, with pro-Russia separatists declaring self-rule in areas across eastern Ukraine.

Al Jazeera and wire services