Fighting intensifies in Ukraine ahead of peace talks

(Vatican Radio) Ukrainian government officials say pro-Russian separatists have fired rockets on the eastern Ukrainian town of Kramatorsk, killing at least five people and injuring 26 others, including 10 soldiers. Ukraine's military also claimed to have taken several villages in eastern Ukraine where attacks were reported in several areas. 

Listen to the report by Stefan Bos:

Men, women and children on all sides were in the crossfire during the fighting, that already killed more than 5,300 people and displaced nearly one million others since April last year.   

Rockets also hit a soup kitchen in the rebel-held town of Pervomaisk. People panicked, diving for cover beneath tables. They soon rushed to take shelter in the cellar, where a mother embraced a crying woman.

MORE ATTACKS

It was the latest in several attacks shaking eastern Ukraine Tuesday. President Petro Poroshenko told Parliament there were also a "significant" number of casualties after missiles hit Ukrainian military headquarters and a residential area in the government-controlled city of Kramatorsk. 

Several bodies were seen there. Among them a woman killed by shelling lying on a snowy field in a residential area.  

Elsewhere, a volunteer battalion loyal to Kiev claimed to have captured several villages northeast of the strategic port of Mariupol. Separatists denied those claims.  

The intense fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels appeared aimed at changing realities on the ground, ahead of Wednesday's peace talks in Minsk between German, French, Russian and Ukrainian leaders. It meant more suffering for an increasingly desperate population.