Pro-Russia rebels stage renewed Ukraine airport assault

Donetsk (Ukraine) (AFP) - Pro-Russian insurgents launched repeated raids Thursday on an airport held by isolated Ukrainian forces as a month-old truce came under renewed strain and calls grew for the Kremlin to help halt the bloody revolt.

Smoke billowed Thursday over the northern half of Donetsk as resurgent rebels -- backed up by what NATO claims are hundreds of elite Russian forces -- tried to stage a final push on the devastated airport they have set their sights on since May.

"There is a huge fire burning at the airport. It is probably due to the fuel," a representative at the Donetsk separatist headquarters said as periodic rounds of machinegun fire echoed through deserted streets.

Ukrainian defence spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov said the militiamen used tanks to shell besieged government forces who control the main terminal but none of the roads leading to what was once the east's busiest air hub.

The Donetsk rebel representative said gunmen had briefly entered a section of the main building on Wednesday before they were repelled.

Nearly 70 Ukrainian troops and civilians -- along with an undisclosed number of separatist gunmen who control swathes of eastern Ukraine -- have been killed since Moscow and Kiev signed a 12-point peace pact on September 5.

But the five-month uprising has barely slowed and the rebels continue to reject Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's efforts to save the ex-Soviet country from disintegration by offering autonomy to its ethnically Russian parts.

Ten civilians died in Donetsk on Wednesday when a school and a bus station were shelled.

The sides traded blame but Amnesty International said both were responsible because they continued using often indiscriminate rocket fire in neighbourhoods lined with apartment blocks and community centres.

The upsurge in violence prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- viewed as Kiev's closest and most powerful European ally -- to call Russian President Vladimir Putin and remind him of Moscow's "responsiblity" to rein in the rebels.

- Russian gas war -

Ukraine's security concerns have been exacerbated by a new gas war with Russia that threatens to leave parts of the nearly-bankrupt country without heating through the long winter months.

Russia nearly doubled Ukraine's gas price a few weeks after the February ouster in Kiev of a Kremlin-backed president who had earlier rejected a historic EU trade and political association deal.

Kiev refused to make the extra payment and Russia's decision in June to cut Ukrainian shipments has fuelled an economic meltdown that has forced world powers to cobble together $27 billion (21 billion euros) in emergency aid.

The World Bank downgraded Ukraine's 2014 economic growth forecast to an eight-percent contraction -- three percentage points lower than its previous outlook and more in line with the view taken by other institutions.

"There is no easy way out of the current crisis," regional World Bank director Qimiao Fan warned.

The Ukrainian energy chiefs travelled to Brussels ahead of what both Kiev and Moscow said would be a new round of EU-brokered talks in Berlin on Friday about the energy dispute.

But Thursday's talks between teams led by Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan and EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger were cancelled and the Kiev delegation decided to extend its stay by a day.

Russia's energy ministry spokeswoman Olga Golant said new three-way discussion that Oettinger said would be held by the end of the week in Berlin had also been postponed.

"EU officials said they would not be able to take part (on Friday)," said the Russian ministry spokeswoman.

"We will announce a date when it is set."

European officials did not immediately explain the apparent last-minute delays, but they came a day after EU member Slovakia reported a 50-percent drop in its Russian gas supplies.

The former Soviet satellite nation had refused to bow to earlier Moscow pressure and continued diverting some of its Russian gas imports to Ukraine in order to ease its growing gas shortage.

Moscow accused Slovakia of violating the terms of its contract with Russia's state-held gas giant Gazprom and threatened to limit supplies to countries that assist Ukraine.

But Gazprom said Thursday that its delivery volumes to Slovakia remained steady. It also suggested that Bratislava was probably referring to the Russian firm's failure to meet its request for additional volumes.