Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine deny launching an attack on a convoy of vehicles moving refugees from the Luhansk area.  Ukrainian officials say that “dozens” of civilians have been killed, including women and children.

“The Ukrainians themselves have bombed the road constantly with planes and Grads.  It seems they’ve now killed more civilians like they've been doing for months now,” said Andrei Purgin, a spokesman for the so-called “Donetsk People's Republic”.

But Ukrainian Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said “militants” armed by Russia with mortars and Grad rockets had fired at a refugee convoy that “had white flags and was marked as civilian”.  Many of the victims burned to death inside the trucks.

The rebels in Donetsk said they had introduced the death penalty for offences including treason, desertion and sabotage. 

There has also been sustained artillery shelling in Luhansk.  More than a third of the city’s former population has fled, leaving behind 250,000 people suffering chronic shortages of water, food and electricity.