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KIEV — Ukraine said Saturday a truce was largely holding in the war-battered east, despite fears it may ultimately fail to halt a pro-Russian insurgency still threatening to tear the country apart.

The 12-point pact signed on Friday is the first backed by both Kiev and Moscow to end a conflict which triggered the most serious crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

But the separatists insist they will not give up their ambitions for an independent state in the industrial east, and weary local residents were doubtful the ceasefire would bring lasting peace to their devastated towns and cities.

The pro-Moscow rebels and the Ukrainian military had accused each other earlier Saturday of some breaches of the deal in the hours after it was signed in the Belarussian capital Minsk on Friday.

But Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Saturday that he and Russian leader Vladimir Putin had agreed in a phone call that it "was generally being observed".

Suspicious of Putin 

Western leaders remain deeply suspicious of Putin's true intentions after accusing him of actively fomenting the rebellion by funnelling large numbers of troops and heavy weaponry across the border, claims Moscow has repeatedly denied.

Despite the ceasefire, the US and the EU agreed to beef up sanctions against Moscow and NATO approved a rapid reaction force aimed at reassuring jittery Eastern European states.

Russia warned it would respond if the EU imposes more sanctions, accusing Brussels of supporting the “party of war” in Kiev.

Nearly 2,800 people have been killed since April, according to AFP calculations, when Kiev launched a huge offensive against Russian-speaking militiamen who had seized a string of towns and cities across Ukraine’s vital coal and steel belt in the chaotic aftermath of Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.

Full details of the Minsk accord have not been disclosed although some of the terms call for both sides to start pulling back from major flashpoints and exchanging prisoners from Saturday.

Russia is also being allowed to supply stricken cities with humanitarian aid that Kiev had previously opposed out of fear the convoys could be used to smuggle arms.

However, there was no indication if any of the articles had yet been implemented on the ground.

Poroshenko has said he was “satisfied” with the agreement.

But it exposes him to charges of signing off on his government’s surrender and failing on his May election promise to reunify the nation of 45 million under a single banner of building strong ties with the West.

The truce was drawn up after a dramatic spiral in tensions when the rebels, reportedly backed by Russian troops, launched a lightning counter-offensive across the southeast that turned the tide of the conflict against the Ukrainian army.

It could leave the separatists — who remain deeply mistrustful of the nationalist-leaning government in Kiev — in effective control of a region that accounts for one-sixth of Ukraine’s population and a quarter of its exports.

Rebel Donetsk Parliament Speaker Boris Litvinov insisted that the ceasefire did not mean fighters had given up on the goal of establishing their own state with binding diplomatic and trade ties to Russia.

“We want our own president, our own currency and our own banking system,” a pro-Russian guerrilla named Oleg told AFP in the Donetsk region town of Yasynuvata.

“This is the only way. There is no other alternative.”

And in some of the flashpoint cities, locals were pessimistic after a unilateral Kiev ceasefire in June collapsed just after a few days.

‘They are bandits’ 

The months of fighting have left dozens of towns in the east in ruins and once-powerful factories and coalmines that form the backbone of Ukraine’s economy have ground to a halt.

“It’s impossible to trust them [the rebels], they are bandits,” said Natalia, a 54-year-old professor staying with friends in the port city of Mariupol after fleeing Donetsk.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said the agreement required US and EU guarantees because Kiev could “not manage with Russia on our own”.

Outgoing NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, announcing the agreement among members for a rapid reaction force at the alliance’s summit in Wales, described the Ukraine crisis as a “wake-up call”.

“This decision sends a clear message — NATO protects all allies at all times,” he said.

But despite its strong words against Moscow, Washington appears to have little appetite to become directly involved in ensuring the peace.

“This obviously is a ceasefire that has to be held between Russia and Ukraine,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

“This isn’t about the United States; this is about them.”

Moscow has vowed to fight back against the punitive Western sanctions, accusing NATO of concocting evidence about its role in Ukraine as a pretext for expanding its own presence along Russia’s western frontier.

“Instead of feverishly searching for ways to hurt the economies of its own countries and Russia, the European Union would do better to work on supporting the economic revival of the Donbass region” of eastern Ukraine, the foreign ministry said Saturday.

FREETOWN — Sierra Leone said Saturday it will confine people to their homes in a nationwide three-day shutdown later this month aimed at containing the Ebola epidemic threatening west Africa.

Pedestrians and vehicles will be barred from the country's streets, except on essential business, for 72 hours starting from September 19.

"This will be strictly adhered to without exception," government spokesman Abdulai Bayratay told AFP by telephone as he announced the quarantine plan.

"We intend to ensure that the dreaded disease is checked."

The worst-ever outbreak of Ebola has claimed 491 lives in Sierra Leone, one of three countries at the epicentre of the epidemic which has so far killed more than 2,000.

Authorities in Freetown will use the three-day window to search out patients who have not come forward for treatment centres.

"Health workers as well as health-related NGO personnel will make house-to-house checks on homes for likely Ebola sufferers that relatives have hidden," he said.

Bayratay said several new ambulances and up to 30 military vehicles would be arriving to help enforce, and make use of the shutdown, which could be repeated if necessary.

A 7,000-strong patrol force including health workers, civil society activists and community members is to be set up to organise the shutdown, said a statement from the presidency in Freetown.

"Their mission will be to monitor and track contacts, as well as to identify people with Ebola symptoms in order to prevent its transmission," the statement said.

"The decision was made to mobilise the entire population from September 18 to prepare for the confinement."

The Sierra Leone quarantine plan was announced after the World Health Organisation said Friday that the death toll from Ebola since the start of the year had topped 2,000.

The virus has so far claimed 2,097 lives out of 3,944 people infected in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the UN health body said.

Nigeria has recorded another eight deaths out of 22 cases. At least 30 more people have died in a separate outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

SRINAGAR, India — More than 230 people in Pakistan and northern India have been killed in torrential monsoon rains which triggered flooding, landslides and house collapses, officials in the two countries said Saturday.

Troops and other emergency personnel were deployed in both countries to help with relief operations, with boats and helicopters being used to reach stranded people.

Incessant rains in Pakistan have killed at least 106 people over the past three days and damaged thousands of houses, officials said as authorities put four districts on red alert for floods.

And in neighbouring India, torrential rains and flooding have left at least 128 people dead, and marooned thousands more, according to officials.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired a high-level review meeting Saturday, and ordered acceleration of relief and rescue efforts in the country, his office said.

In worst-hit Punjab province, the death toll from rains and flooding over the past three days hit 55 while 235 people were injured, rescue services director general Rizwan Naseer, told AFP.

Another 48 people have died in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, said Akram Sohail, chairman of the disaster management agency in capital Muzaffarabad.

Three soldiers also were killed in a mudslide Thursday near the de-facto border with India, known as the Line of Control dividing disputed Pakistani- and Indian-administered Kashmir.

Pakistan has been swept by deadly monsoon floods for the last four years — in 2013, 178 people were killed and around 1.5 million affected by flooding around the country.

Rescue workers struggled to reach remote mountain villages in Pakistan's scenic Neelum valley along the Line of Control but landslides hampered efforts.

"The landslides caused by rains have damaged 4,000 houses in Kashmir — more than half have been destroyed," Sohail said.

Hardest hit on the Indian side was Indian Kashmir where the heaviest rains and flooding in at least half a century have claimed at least 107 lives since last Tuesday.

"The floods have caused a lot of damage," Indian home affairs minister Rajnath Singh said after being driven around Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, by state chief minister Omar Abdullah.

"If this is the condition of city, what will be the situation in rural areas?" Singh asked.

Many key roads and the lone highway linking the Kashmir region to the Indian plains were closed, communication lines and railway services disrupted, while several bridges were washed away.

Some 30 bodies were pulled from a river in the mountainous Rajouri region of south Kashmir, a senior state official said. The victims were among at least 63 people aboard a bus swept into a gorge last Thursday by fast-flowing flood waters. Rescuers are still searching for the 33 other people who were on the bus.

"Apart from the bus victims, 66 people have died in flooding incidents in the Jammu region [in the south of Indian Kashmir]," said Jammu divisional commissioner Shantmanu, who uses only one name.

Another 11 people were killed in the Kashmir valley as rescuers struggled to move thousands of people stranded by floods to higher ground, officials said.

The usually slow-flowing river Jhelum, which meanders through Srinagar, is running far above the danger levels, swollen by pounding rains.

In India's Punjab state, at least 21 people died as a result of house cave-ins and landslides.

Most deaths were reported from villages near Amritsar, home to the Golden Temple Sikh shrine.

Eight members of one family died in their sleep when the roof of their dilapidated home collapsed, administration official Rohit Gupta told AFP.

In Pakistan, rescue official Naseer said waters were receding in many areas of Punjab provincial capital Lahore and other districts.

But "a red alert" has been issued in four districts — Jhelum, Sialkot, Nankana Sahib and Narowal — where the situation was still precarious, he said.

NEW DELHI — India put several provinces on heightened alert on Thursday after Al Qaeda announced the formation of a wing of the militant group in India and its neighbourhood, a senior government official said.

In a video posted online, Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri promised to spread Islamic rule and "raise the flag of jihad" across the "Indian subcontinent".

New Delhi regards the message as authentic and has warned local governments, said an official who attended a security briefing in which it was discussed with Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who is responsible for policing and internal security.

"This matter has been taken very seriously," the official told Reuters. "An alert has been sounded."

Indian security forces are usually on a state of alert for attacks by homegrown Islamist militants and by anti-India groups based in Pakistan. It was not immediately clear what additional steps were being taken.

Until now there has been no evidence that Al Qaeda, the group responsible for the September 11, 2001, airliner attacks on New York's World Trade Centre, has a presence in India.

The timing and content of the video suggests rivalry between Al Qaeda and its more vigorous rival in Syria and Iraq, Islamic State, which anecdotal evidence suggests is gathering support in South Asia.

According to media reports, Islamic State pamphlets have been distributed in Pakistan in recent days.

"Al Qaeda has seen its authority eroded by the fact that it is no longer able to independently carry out large-scale attacks anywhere in the world, and by the emergence of rival factions," Omar Hamid, head of Asia analysis at security research firm IHS Country Risk, wrote in a report.

Al Qaeda's establishment of a local branch seeks to take advantage of the planned withdrawal of US-led forces from Afghanistan, which may lead to an influx of battle-hardened militants into India, Hamid added.

Modi heartland

Zawahiri's announcement made two references to Gujarat, the home state of India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist.

Modi has long been a hate figure for Islamist groups because of religious riots on his watch as chief minister of the state in 2002. More than 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, died in the spasm of violence.

"In the wake of this Al Qaeda video, we will be on a higher alert. We will work closely with the central government to tackle any threat posed to the state," S.K. Nanda, the most senior bureaucrat in the home department of Gujarat, told Reuters. A high security alert in the state involves activating informer networks in sensitive areas.

A senior police official said that Gujarat has been high on the list of militant organisations, including Al Qaeda, since the 2002 riots.

"It will be more so now because Narendra Modi is prime minister," the official said, requesting anonymity.

Zawahiri described the formation of "Al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent" as glad tidings for Muslims "in Burma, Bangladesh, Assam, Gujarat, Ahmedabad, and Kashmir" and said the new wing would rescue Muslims there from injustice and oppression.

Ahmedabad is the main city in Gujarat state, which borders India's archrival, Pakistan.

Assam is a state in India's far-flung northeast where religious tensions are high after massacres of Muslims by tribal populations in the past two years. A senior intelligence officer in the state said security forces there were "well prepared" to face any threats.

Muslims make up 15 per cent of the Indian population but, numbering an estimated 175 million, theirs is the third-largest Muslim population in the world.

Tensions between Hindus and Muslims on the subcontinent have grown since Pakistan was carved from Muslim-majority areas of India in 1947, a violent partition in which hundreds of thousands were killed.

Kashmir, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan, has long attracted foreign mujahedeen fighters as well as homegrown separatist militants. In June, Al Qaeda released a video urging young radicals in Kashmir to draw inspiration from militants in Syria and Iraq and join the "global jihad".

Intelligence sources in Indian-held Kashmir told Reuters on Thursday that they had so far detected no traces of Al Qaeda in the Himalayan region that borders Pakistan and China.

The appearance of Islamic State flags at recent protest rallies in Kashmir was the work of an individual and did not point to any involvement of the group there, one said.

India has suffered several large-scale attacks by Islamist militants, most recently the 2008 Mumbai rampage by Pakistani fighters that left 166 people dead.

Smaller domestic militant groups regularly detonate small bombs, but have so far failed to launch a major attack. Earlier this year, Indian intelligence agencies said a handful of Indian men had joined the militancy in the Levant, among the first known cases of Indians joining foreign jihad.

Hindu nationalist groups sympathetic to Modi have been stirring sectarian tensions in recent weeks, claiming there is an Islamist conspiracy to seduce Hindu women and convert them to Islam.

At one of the world's most influential Islamic seminaries, Darul Uloom Deoband, in northern India, an official said that extremist groups routinely try to recruit young, uneducated and poor Muslim boys as militants.

"We inform our students about the dangers faced by Islam, and rising militancy is one of the key subjects discussed in the seminary," said Ashraf Usmani from the seminary, which is known for its conservative Muslim thought.

"I can say this with confidence that no student from Deoband can be recruited by Al Qaeda or any other terror groups."

DAKAR — International medical agency Medecins sans Frontieres said Tuesday the world was "losing the battle" to contain Ebola as the United Nations warned of severe food shortages in the hardest-hit countries.

MSF told a UN briefing in New York that world leaders were failing to address the epidemic and called for an urgent global biological disaster response to get aid and personnel to West Africa.

"Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it. Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat," said MSF international President Joanne Liu.

"The [World Health Organisation] announcement on August 8 that the epidemic constituted a 'public health emergency of international concern' has not led to decisive action, and states have essentially joined a global coalition of inaction."

Her comments came as a third American health worker tested positive for the deadly virus while working with patients in Liberia, the worst-hit country.

"My heart was deeply saddened, but my faith was not shaken, when I learned another of our missionary doctors contracted Ebola," said Bruce Johnson, president of the SIM Christian Missionary group for whom the unnamed American worked.

Two fellow US health workers who worked at the same ELWA Hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia were previously flown home and successfully treated for the virus.

Unlike the others, the latest US victim had not been working directly with Ebola patients, and it is not yet clear how he caught the disease, which is usually fatal.

Liu called for the international community to fund more beds for a regional network of field hospitals, dispatch trained personnel and deploy mobile laboratories across Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

MSF said in a statement accompanying the briefing that the crisis was particularly acute in Monrovia, where it is estimated that "800 additional beds are needed".

"Every day we have to turn sick people away because we are too full", said Stefan Liljegren, MSF's coordinator at the ELWA Three Ebola unit in Monrovia.

MSF said that while its care centres in Liberia and Sierra Leone were overcrowded, people were continuing to die in their communities.

"In Sierra Leone, highly infectious bodies are rotting in the streets," their statement said.

The Ebola outbreak has killed 1,552 people and infected 3,062, according to the latest figures released by the WHO.

At current infection rates, the agency fears it could take six to nine months and at least $490 million (373 million euros) to bring the outbreak under control, by which time more than 20,000 people could be affected.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation issued an alert that restrictions on movement in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone had led to panic buying, food shortages and severe price hikes.

"With the main harvest now at risk and trade and movements of goods severely restricted, food insecurity is poised to intensify in the weeks and months to come, warned Bukar Tijani, FAO regional representative for Africa.

The food security alert was sounded as the WHO announced a separate Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has now killed 31 people, although it added that the contagion was confined to an area 800 kilometres north of Kinshasa.

In Liberia, which has been hardest-hit with 694 deaths, the price of the national staple cassava on market stalls in Monrovia went up 150 per cent within the first weeks of August, the FAO said.

"This situation may have social repercussions that could lead to subsequent impact on the disease containment," said Vincent Martin, head of the FAO's Resilience Hub in Dakar, Senegal.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) launched an emergency operation on Tuesday to get 65,000 tonnes of food to 1.3 million people in the worst-hit areas.

The outbreak of Ebola, transmitted through contact with infected bodly fluids, has sparked alarm throughout West Africa but also further afield, with international flights being halted.

The WHO has appealed for the reversal of flight cancellations and virologists said Tuesday travel restrictions could worsen the epidemic, limiting medical and food supplies and keeping out much-needed doctors.

"If we impose an aerial quarantine on these countries, we undermine their fight against the epidemic: The rotation of foreign medical staff and distribution of supplies, already inadequate, will become even more difficult," said Sylvain Baize, head of the Pasteur Institute's viral haemorrhagic fever centre in Lyon, France.

Meanwhile, Michael Kinzer of the US-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention likened closing borders to "closing your eyes".

"It makes more sense for countries to spend their money and energy on preparing their health systems to recognise an Ebola case and respond correctly... so that the virus does not spread," he said.

TALLINN, Estonia — Lashing out at Russia, President Barack Obama on Wednesday cast Moscow's aggression in Ukraine as a threat to peace in Europe. He vigorously vowed to come to the defence of NATO allies that fear they could be Vladimir Putin's next target.

"You lost your independence once before," Obama said following meetings with Baltic leaders in the Estonian capital of Tallinn. "With NATO, you'll never lose it again."

Obama, who faces criticism in the US for being too cautious in confronting Russian President Putin, sharply condemned Moscow's provocations. He declared in blunt terms that Russian forces that have moved into Ukraine in recent weeks are not on a humanitarian or peacekeeping mission, as the Kremlin has insisted.

"They are Russian combat forces with Russian weapons in Russian tanks," he said during a speech at a packed concert hall.

Obama also took aim at one of Russia's main rationales for its provocations in Ukraine: The protection of Russian speakers living outside its borders. Like Ukraine, Estonia and other Baltic nations have sizeable Russian-speaking populations, compounding their fears that Moscow could seek to intervene inside their borders.

"We reject the lie that people cannot live and thrive together just because they have different backgrounds or speak a different language," Obama said.

Despite the president's tough talk, the US and Europe have been unable to shift Putin's calculus in the months-long crisis in eastern Ukraine. While multiple rounds of Western sanctions have damaged Russia's economy, the penalties have not pushed Putin to end what the White House says is unfettered support for pro-Moscow separatists who have stirred upheaval in key cities.

Obama offered no new options for penalising Russia beyond more sanctions, and reiterated his opposition to getting involved in the conflict militarily.

Shortly after the president arrived in Estonia Wednesday morning, there was a brief flicker of hope for a resolution to the conflict. The Ukrainian president's office announced that it had reached a ceasefire agreement with Putin. But the statement was ambiguous, and a top rebel figure quickly said no ceasefire was possible without Ukraine withdrawing its forces.

Estonia and other countries in the region that were once under Soviet control have been warily eying Putin's aggression and fear he could set his sights on their nations next. Unlike Ukraine, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are NATO members, and have been seeking firm commitments that the US and other alliance powers would come to their defence if Russia were to encroach on their territory.

Obama's three-day trip to Europe is aimed at offering just those assurances. Following a meeting with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, he declared that the US commitment to security of NATO's newest members runs deep.

"We will defend our NATO allies — every ally," he said. "In this alliance, there are no old members or new members, no senior partners or junior partners — there are just allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every single one."

Obama's comments were welcomed by Estonian President Toomas Hendrick Ilves, who said the US commitment to his country has "helped set an example for other NATO allies". Still, he continued to push for a more persistent NATO military presence in his country, something some allies have been loath to do because of a 1997 agreement with Russia in which the alliance agreed not to put permanent bases on Russia's borders.

"I would argue this is an unforeseen and new security environment," Ilves said.

Obama departed Estonia Wednesday evening for Wales, where a high-stakes NATO summit will get underway Thursday. The alliance is expected to approve plans to station more troops and equipment in Eastern Europe, with the aim of building a rapid response force that could deploy within 48 hours.

He addressed US and Estonian troops at the airport before leaving.

"You're sending a powerful message that, as NATO allies, we stand together," Obama said. "We stand as one."

He earlier had announced that he was sending more air force units and aircraft to the Baltics, and called Estonia's Amari Air Base an ideal location to base those forces.

Obama is the second sitting American president to visit Estonia, following president George W. Bush, who traveled here in 2006. Upon his arrival, Obama wrote in a guest book that it was an honour to visit "a nation that shows what free people can achieve together”.

The Baltics were invaded by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany during World War II. After the Soviet Union crumbled, the Baltic countries turned to the West and joined the European Union and NATO in 2004, much to the chagrin of Russia.

MONROVIA — Scores of healthcare workers at Liberia's main hospital have gone on strike over unpaid wages, complicating the fight against the world's worst Ebola epidemic that the US disease prevention chief said was spiralling out of control.

As well as the quickly mounting human toll, the United Nations warned the spread of the fever could lead to food shortages in West Africa, potentially further depleting the resources of governments frantically trying to contain it.

The World Health Organisation and other international bodies are scrambling to support of fragile healthcare systems in some of the world's poorest countries, but so far additional staff and resources have been slow to arrive on the ground.

More than 120 health workers have died during the Ebola outbreak amid shortages of equipment and trained staff in the region. That is nearly a 10th of the total 1,550 killed by the disease, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The strike at the John F. Kennedy Medical Centre (JFK) in Liberia's capital Monrovia follows a one-day protest over pay and conditions at the Connaught hospital in Sierra Leone's capital on Monday. Both hospitals have treated Ebola patients.

"Health workers have died [fighting Ebola], including medical doctors at... JFK and to have them come to work without food on their table, we think that is pathetic," George Williams, secretary general of the Health Workers Association of Liberia, told Reuters.

Williams said healthcare workers at JFK, the country's largest referral hospital, had gone unpaid for two months.

Staff at the main Ebola clinic at Kenema in eastern Sierra Leone also walked off the job last week, in protest at conditions.

US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden said on Tuesday the outbreak was accelerating very fast, and urged more global support to combat the Ebola outbreak.

"It's spiralling out of control. The situation is bad and it looks like it's going to get worse quickly. There is still a window of opportunity to tamp it down but that window is closing and we need to act now," he told NBC News in an interview following a trip to Africa.

"This is different than every other Ebola situation we've ever had. It's spreading widely, throughout entire countries, through multiple countries, in cities and very fast," he said, speaking from CDC headquarters in Atlanta.

Frieden called on health officials to immediately seek to reverse the outbreak by sending in more resources and specialised workers, adding that the US government now has 70 people in the region.

The countries affected want to fight the outbreak but face limited resources, he added. "There is a willingness there to confront it, but they need to world to support them."

Putting further pressure on the ability of the region's governments to spend money on healthcare, the epidemic has also put harvests at risk and sent food prices soaring in West Africa, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said.

Restrictions on people's movements and the establishment of quarantine zones to contain the spread of the haemorrhagic fever has led to panic buying, food shortages and price hikes in countries ill-prepared to absorb the shock.

The FAO issued an alert for Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three countries most affected by the outbreak, which was detected in the forests of southeastern Guinea in March.

The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in the Djera region of northern Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to 31, Minister of Health Felix Kabange Numbi told Reuters on Tuesday.

The outbreak in Congo's Equateur province is thought to be separate from the West African epidemic.

BRUSSELS/KIEV — European officials proposed sweeping new sanctions on Tuesday to starve Russia's companies of capital and technology as punishment for Moscow's intervention in Ukraine, where Kiev officials said Russia was bolstering an "invasion" force.

Western countries accuse Moscow of sending armoured columns of troops into Ukraine, where the momentum in a five-month war shifted last week decisively in favour of pro-Russian rebels, who are now advancing on a major port.

Russia denies its troops are involved in fighting on the ground, in the face of what Western countries and Ukraine say is overwhelming evidence.

According to the United Nations, the war, in which pro-Russian separatists are fighting to throw off rule from Kiev, has killed more than 2,600 people and driven nearly a million from their homes in east Ukraine.

European leaders asked the EU on Saturday to draw up new sanctions to punish Moscow, which are expected to be unveiled on Wednesday and adopted by Friday. The United States is also planning new sanctions but is keen to maintain Western unity by not getting in front of its European allies.

Outlining the new proposals on Tuesday, European diplomats described a number of mainly technical measures that would have the combined effect of making it harder for companies in Russia's state-dominated economy to obtain overseas financing.

US and EU sanctions steadily tightened since March have already made it hard for many Russian firms to borrow, scaring investors and contributing to billions of dollars in capital flight that has wounded the Russian economy. Moscow has responded by banning most imports of Western food.

"We need to respond in the strongest possible way," said the EU's newly named incoming foreign policy chief, Italian foreign minister, Federica Mogherini. "Things on the ground are getting more and more dramatic. We speak of an aggression, and I think sanctions are part of a political strategy."

A summit of European leaders has been dominated by events in Ukraine. According to Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, outgoing European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said Russian President Vladimir Putin had told him he could take Ukraine's capital within two weeks. The Kremlin said any such remarks were taken out of context and criticised Barroso for the leak.

Still, it is by no means clear that the sanctions will pass in their proposed form: The 28 EU member states must all agree on any measures, and several have openly expressed scepticism.

Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said he would study ways to reduce the harm to his country from sanctions, and seemed unconvinced by the entire strategy.

"The problem is that if sanctions are escalated now, there will be a reaction from Russia and we are not able to estimate at this point what impact the next wave of sanctions by Russia against EU countries will have," he said.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has also expressed concern, calling sanctions "meaningless and counterproductive".

The measures described by EU diplomats all build on earlier sanctions imposed in July, which hit Russian business broadly for the first time.

The new proposals on the table would widen a ban on Russian state banks raising capital in EU markets to cover all Russian state-owned firms. The capital markets borrowing ban would be extended to include syndicated loans from EU banks, and a ban on sales in Europe of Russian debt instruments for periods of less than 90 days would be reduced to 30 days.

Bans on sales of energy technology, and technology with dual military and civilian uses would be tightened. And the 28-member bloc could also consider more symbolic measures, like adding Russia's defence minister to an EU travel ban list and possibly even limiting future sport and culture exchanges.

The European Union also opened a pipeline that could supply Ukraine with 20 per cent of its natural gas needs, important aid for a country that depends on Russian energy. Kiev has been burning gas reserves since Moscow cut it off two months ago.

The International Monetary Fund, which is supporting Kiev with loans, said it would need a bigger bailout if war goes on.

In an interview with Reuters, Kiev's governor for the Donetsk region, now operating out of the province's second-biggest city Mariupol while the regional capital Donetsk is in rebel hands, described the Russian presence as an "invasion".

Western leaders including US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, mindful that the Russian forces they say have crossed into Ukraine still represent just a fraction of Moscow's potential might in the area, have so far avoided that word, instead calling it an "incursion".

"A huge amount of weapons are unfortunately crossing the Russian border. They [the Russians] bring them to Ukraine to bring death and destruction, and they try to annex part of Ukrainian territory," the governor, wealthy industrialist Serhiy Taruta, told Reuters. "So it is very difficult to qualify it any way other than as an invasion."

Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, where most of the population is ethnic Russian, in March. Since then, rebels in the east, where most people identify themselves as ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian, have declared independence.

At talks this week, the rebels have offered to consider some kind of special status formally within Ukraine, while Putin said their status, including "statehood", should be negotiated.

Kiev has refused to discuss political issues with armed rebels it says are proxies of Moscow.

The rebels have been steadily advancing in recent days after weeks in which they had appeared to be on the verge of collapse while government forces besieged them in two provincial capitals, Donetsk and Luhansk.

Government forces pulled out of Luhansk airport on Monday. On Tuesday, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said they had destroyed the runway before leaving to make it unusable.

He also said the government was reinforcing Mariupol, a port of around half-a-million people, and the next big city in the path of a rebel advance that began last week with the sudden capture of the small town of Novoazovsk.

"Soon we will build a second line of defence at a distance further out of 15-20km from the town," Lysenko said.

Lysenko said Russian trucks, painted white, were now being used to deliver arms to the rebels.

"Last night, four white trucks came ... and after an hour went back again. It's not the first time that white trucks have unlawfully crossed the border accompanied by off-road vehicles and guards," he told journalists.

Months ago Mariupol rallied behind Kiev after the region's main employer Metinvest, the industrial firm of Ukraine's richest man Akhmet Rinatov, sent steelworkers into the streets to push out rebels.

At a Metinvest smelter, Alexander Ilarionov, a manager, said the employees were keeping production going despite being cut off from raw materials. If the rebels arrive, the workers will defend the city, he said.

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani soldiers and paramilitary forces secured the state television headquarters in Islamabad on Monday after a crowd of anti-government protesters stormed the building, and took the channel off the air.

Protesters led by opposition leaders Imran Khan, a hero cricket player turned politician, and firebrand Muslim cleric Tahir ul Qadri have been on the streets for weeks trying to bring down the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Protests descended into deadly chaos over the weekend, with demonstrators clashing with police in a central area near many government buildings and embassies. Three people were killed.

Sharif, who was toppled by the army in a 1999 coup but staged a comeback with a big election win in May last year, has refused to quit while protest leaders have rejected his offers of talks, creating a dangerous deadlock.

Clashes broke out early on Monday and continued sporadically throughout the day. The state PTV channel and its English-language PTV World service were taken off the air after protesters stormed its headquarters.

A PTV source told Reuters the protesters had occupied the main control room and smashed some equipment. Uniformed members of a paramilitary force and soldiers later secured the building, and the station later came back on the air.

In the nuclear-armed nation where power has often changed hands through military coups rather than elections, the army is bound to play a key role in how the conflict unfolds.

It has not directly intervened, apart from meeting the protagonists and calling on them to show restraint.

Army chief General Raheel Sharif met Prime Minister Sharif on Monday, but it was unclear what they discussed.

Writ of the state

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told Reuters the government was preparing to launch a selective crackdown against protesters, possibly later on Monday, and warned demonstrators against storming government buildings.

"The writ of the state must be enforced. We hope to make a decisive move sometimes later today, not in the evening but even before that," he said. "I personally feel that the next few hours will determine the course of coming events."

Protesters have camped out in Islamabad since mid-August, paralysing life in the centre of the capital and creating massive traffic jams. The protest site, where many sleep rough, is littered with rubbish and reeks of human waste.

How the crisis ends will be ultimately decided by the army. If the protests get out of hand, the military could step in decisively, imposing a curfew or even martial law.

There is also a question mark over how much protest leaders are capable of controlling their own people, many of them frustrated after weeks of hardship and no solution in sight.

Alternatively, the army could side with the protesters and put pressure on Sharif to resign, in which case an interim government would have be put in place and early parliamentary elections held to elect a new government.

However, few observers believe the army is bent on seizing power again. A weakened Sharif would allow the army to remain firmly in charge of key issues such as relations with India and Afghanistan while allowing the civilian government to deal with day-to-day economic problems in which it has little interest.

The United States, already concerned about regional stability at a time when most of its troops are leaving neighbouring Afghanistan, called for restraint by all sides, saying protesters had a right to demonstrate peacefully.

"Violence and destruction of private property and government buildings are not acceptable means of resolving political differences, however, and we strongly oppose any efforts to impose extra-constitutional change to the political system," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Disagreements

Some ruling party officials have accused elements within the military of orchestrating the protests to weaken the government.

Khan and Qadri have instructed their supporters to avoid any confrontation with the armed forces and strictly follow their orders. As soldiers entered the PTV building, many protesters smiled and shook hands with them.

The military insists it does not meddle in politics but it was known to be frustrated with the government, in particular over the treason trial of former military chief and ex-President Pervez Musharraf, who deposed Sharif in 1999.

There has also been disagreement on how to handle Islamist militants and on relations with old rival India.

On Monday morning, despite heavy rain, crowds of protesters fought running battles with retreating police after breaking the main gate into the Pakistan Secretariat area which houses government ministries as well as Sharif's official residence.

After a brief lull during the day, protesters once again charged towards police lines in the so-called Red zone — home to the prime minister's house, parliament and foreign embassies — as they sought to reach the prime minister's house.

Sharif, who was prime minister twice in the 1990s, swept to office last year in Pakistan's first democratic transition of power. He is due to address both houses of parliament on Tuesday in an apparent effort to show that he is firmly in control.

Seeking to appear decisive as the conflict unfolded, the government has also registered treason cases against Khan and Qadri following the weekend clashes, the defence minister said.

But Sharif looks increasingly cornered, and even if he survives the crisis he is likely to remain significantly weakened for the rest of his tenure.

In a speech laced with populist slogans, Khan said he would not call off the protests until Sharif resigns. "Pakistan's Hosni Mubarak, who buys people with his money, was once thought of as indispensable, but today his legs are shaking," he said, likening Sharif to the ousted Egyptian leader.

KIEV — Ukrainian forces ceded a strategic eastern airport to pro-Russian insurgents on Monday as the government in Kiev accused Moscow of launching a "great war" that could claim tens of thousands of lives.

The sense of foreboding in Kiev came as European-mediated talks over the fast-escalating crisis opened in the Belarussian capital Minsk behind closed doors, attended by government, separatist and Russian envoys.

The rebels have launched a major counteroffensive in recent days that the Ukrainian government and its Western allies claim is backed by Russian forces — a charge Moscow denies.

Ukraine's Defence Minister Valeriy Geletey vowed on Monday to "immediately mount defences against Russia, which is trying not only to secure positions held by terrorists before but to advance on other territories of Ukraine".

"A great war arrived at our doorstep, the likes of which Europe has not seen since World War II," he wrote on Facebook, warning of "tens of thousands of deaths".

Russian agencies quoted rebel representatives demanding at the Belarus meeting that Kiev provides the separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk with a "unique procedure" that would let them integrate closer with Russia.

The developments come a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin evoked for the first time that the issue of "statehood" should be brought up in talks on the crisis in the east, where fighting has killed over 2,600 people since mid-April.

Putin accused Europe of ignoring the Ukrainian military's "direct targeting" of civilians in the conflict and said the offensive pushed by insurgents there were simply an attempt to expel Kiev's forces from residential areas.

'Overt aggression' 

Kiev said its forces south of the rebel hub of Lugansk were forced to retreat from the local airfield and a nearby village after withstanding artillery fire, and battling a Russian tank battalion.

"There is direct, overt aggression against Ukraine from the neighbouring state," Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said.

The retreat marked the latest setback for Ukrainian troops, which had been closing in on rebels in Donetsk and Lugansk until about a week ago, when the insurgents opened a new front in the south.

Since then, the rebels' lightning offensive has forced Ukrainian army units to abandon numerous positions geared up for the defence of the southeast and of the important southeastern port city of Mariupol, which had been peaceful for months after government troops routed the rebels in May.

AFP correspondents said the presence of Ukrainian army in the region has visibly decreased in recent days.

"The town is being erased off the face of the earth," said Yelena Proidak, a resident of Petrovske, a town between Donetsk and Lugansk. "There is no normal life here."

On the Azov Sea coast, where the Kiev government still controls the 500,000-strong Mariupol, rocket launchers were used to fire on two Ukrainian patrol boats about 5 kilometres from the shore. Two border guards from one of the crews went missing, Kiev said.

A senior Ukrainian security official told AFP on condition of anonymity that Russia's goal was to "destabilise [Ukraine] and create a land corridor to Crimea”, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Moscow in March but connected to Russia only by an old and overloaded ferry link.

15,000 troops 

Kiev and the West have repeatedly accused Russia of direct involvement in Ukraine, with NATO saying last week that Russia had more than 1,000 of its troops deployed in Ukraine and 20,000 massed along the border.

Rights activists in Moscow told AFP that up to 15,000 Russian soldiers had been sent across the Ukrainian border over the past two months. Kiev's security spokesman Andriy Lysenko has estimated the current number or Russian troops at 1,600.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said ahead of the Western military alliance's two-day summit in Wales that opens on Thursday that the growing Russian threat meant the Cold War-era bloc must create a bigger presence in eastern Europe.

"We must face the reality that Russia... considers NATO an adversary," he told reporters. "We cannot afford to be naive."

Kiev has asked NATO for help, and Poroshenko is expected to travel to Wales and meet with US President Barack Obama.

Russia has repeatedly denied helping the insurgency, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declaring on Monday that "there will be no military intervention [in Ukraine]".

Lavrov also called for an "immediate and unconditional ceasefire" to be discussed in Minsk.

The European Union warned Moscow on Sunday that it would slap it with fresh sanctions unless it reversed course in the crisis within a week.

Putin responded on Monday by saying that he hoped "common sense will prevail" and urged the bloc to "work together normally" with Moscow.

The Russian ruble slid to a record low of 37.39 to the US dollar on the latest developments, though the Russian stock markets were broadly stable after opening Monday.