12 dead in Eastern Ukraine after bus came under heavy fire

A passenger bus came under heavy fire in eastern Ukraine, killing 12 people, Ukrainian authorities said, and fighting intensified around the international airport in the city of Donetsk as separatists tried to oust government forces.
The latest violence flared on Tuesday after Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany scrapped plans for a summit in Kazakhstan this week because of the failure to implement a four-month-old ceasefire agreement. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko condemned the bus attack as an act that ‘chilled the heart’ and blamed it on the forces of the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
“These deaths are on the conscience of the DNR and LNR gangs and on those who stand behind them,” he said, promising to sign a decree on Wednesday on more troops for the front. But his comments aroused indignation on Wednesday among some Ukrainians seeking tougher action against the separatists.
The death toll in the attack rose to 12 with the death overnight of one of those wounded, police said. A senior official from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) called for ‘maximum restraint’ from all sides in the Ukraine conflict, which has killed more than 4,700 people since last April.
“Over the past 24 hours the situation has significantly deteriorated, especially near the Donetsk airport,” said Ertugrul Apakan, head of the OSCE’s special monitoring mission.