The U.S. National Security Council has added its voice to the international chorus expressing concern over reports -- including from Kyiv as well as the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) -- that "Russian backed and supplied separatists are moving large convoys of weapons and tanks to the front lines of the conflict" in eastern Ukraine.
It calls on Moscow to "honor all of the commitments it made in Minsk, including ending its military supply to the separatists and the withdrawal of all of its troops and weapons from Ukraine."
Pro-Kyiv military blogger Dmitry Tymchuk says via Facebook that Ukraine's security forces counted 65 attacks by "Russian-terrorist forces" over the past day, nearly half of them in the "direction of Debaltseve Kom" area that's around kilometers from Donetsk.
The report is by Bellingcat, a "citizen investigative journalist" project that's funded in part by a Kickstarter campaign.
More from AFP:
Several columns of heavy armour on Monday headed through rebel-territory to the separatist stronghold of Donetsk in east Ukraine, an AFP journalist said, as fears mounted of a return to all-out fighting.
An AFP journalist saw a total of 21 trucks, six tanks and 14 howitzer cannons driving westwards in the direction of rebel frontline positions.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says that the situation in Ukraine is "serious again" and that all sides, including Russia, must adhere to the terms of a September 5 truce agreement. -- REUTERS