KIEV: Ukrainian government forces and the pro-Russian separatist rebels fighting in eastern Ukraine on Saturday accused each other of disrupting a fragile truce declared late December. Kiev and the rebels agreed a new “indefinite” ceasefire deal after Ukraine and Russia held talks in Minsk last month mediated by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and it went into force on December 24. The deal brought fresh hope of an end to 31 months of fighting in which nearly 10,000 people have been killed. Ex-Soviet Ukraine accuses its neighbour Russia of launching the war in retaliation for the ouster of Kiev’s Moscow-backed president in 2014, while Russia denies any role in the conflict. Ukraine’s military on Saturday accused the rebel militias of shelling 23 times, three times from large-calibre weapons, in the last 24 hours in the area around the rebel stronghold of Donetsk.