Ukraine clashes intensify ahead of peace summit

Intense fighting in Ukraine, including a rocket strike on Kiev's military headquarters in the east, killed at least 20 people yesterday on the eve of a four-way peace summit.

Pro-Russia rebels sought to encircle railway hub Debaltseve, and Ukrainian forces launched a counter-offensive around the strategic port of Mariupol as diplomats scrambled to finalise a deal to end the 10-month war at the summit in Minsk planned for Wednesday.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said rockets from a Tornado multiple launch system for the first time hit the military's command centre in Kramatorsk, a regional capital behind the frontlines considered to be under firm government control and far from rebel positions.

Local officials said the strike killed at least six people and wounded 21 in nearby residential areas.

Kiev and the West accuse Moscow of supplying and training the heavily armed separatists, but Russia denies the claims.

Another seven Ukrainian soldiers and seven civilians were killed in fighting over the last 24 hours, Kiev officials and rebels said, including in Debaltseve which the insurgents claim to have surrounded.

Rebels, diplomats and mediators gathered in the Belarussian capital to bridge gaps on a possible peace deal, which the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany hope to sign in Minsk today.

Relatives react beside the body of a victim after shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramotorsk, yesterday. Photo: AFP

Rebel negotiator Denis Pushilin told the separatists' news agency that he was heading to Minsk for talks with mediators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as well as Russian and Ukrainian representatives.

French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have been conducting frantic diplomacy, taking the "last chance" deal to Poroshenko and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Merkel was in Washington Monday for lengthy talks with the US President Barack Obama on the initiative to defuse fighting that has killed at least 5,400 people since April.

Obama agreed to hold off on sending arms to Ukraine until truce efforts have played out.