KIEV (Reuters) - Civilians were killed on both sides in heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine on Friday, while an attempt to reopen peace talks in neighboring Belarus was aborted before it began.
Two rebel delegates flew to the Belarus capital Minsk, only to announce that talks would not take place on Friday and they were flying back to Moscow. Any talks would be the first since a five-month-old ceasefire collapsed with a new rebel advance last week.
The main rebel stronghold Donetsk echoed to the sound of heavy artillery fire, including salvoes from multiple rocket launchers and heavier thuds from artillery coming from the direction of the airport, a constant battlefield.
A Reuters cameraman in Donetsk saw four covered bodies near a cultural center hit by artillery, and a fifth dead person in a badly-damaged car nearby. A woman was weeping by one of the bodies. Humanitarian aid was being distributed at the center when the shell struck.
A kilometer (half mile) away, a sixth dead person lay where a trolleybus had been hit. The separatists said the total death toll in those two strikes was seven.
Kiev said Friday's shelling of Donetsk was carried out by the rebels themselves to ruin the chance of peace talks. Both sides have made similar allegations throughout the conflict, which are impossible to verify.
"We are already used to this artillery and there's nothing we can do about it. Our boys are defending us," said Alla, a shopkeeper in downtown Donetsk.