Rebels fight on in Ukraine after ceasefire

A spokesman for Ukraine’s national security council said insurgent fighters fired on Ukrainian positions at 22 locations and that they fired artillery at the airport in Donetsk.

The city council of Mariupol, a strategically vital city on the coast of the Sea of Azov, said sporadic shelling on its outskirts took place during the night and into yesterday. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Nato’s most senior officer US Air Force General Philip Breedlove said the two-week-old truce was a “ceasefire in name only” with Russian fighters and weapons freely crossing the border.

An estimated 20,000 people marched through central Moscow yesterday to demonstrate against the fighting in Ukraine and Russia’s alleged complicity in the continuing conflict.