Clashes inside Ukraine's Debaltseve

Ukrainian army and rebels were engaged in heavy fighting in Debaltseve on Tuesday, despite the truce deal brokered last week. The city located between two rebel strongholds Donetsk and Luhansk has been repeatedly shelled since the truce came into effect on Sunday.

On Tuesday, the rebels claimed they have started to "sweep" Debaltseve, which reportedly holds thousands of government troops.

"The city's police precinct is taken… and the train station, most of the city is controlled by the DNR (People's Republic of Donetsk), the sweep continues", a representative of the rebels told Russian Interfax news agency.

The rebels also said that "dozens" of Ukrainian soldiers surrendered during the battle, according to the same source.

At the same time, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told Reuters that the separatists "don't control anything there."

"They're trying to take control of the station, but there's fighting going on. Fighting is going on for the station and for the outskirts of the town," he said.

'A moral thing'

A government official in Debaltseve, Ilya Kiva, told AFP by telephone there was combat in the town, with rebels using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. There were casualties, but he could not give figures.

"If we are not allowed to open fire, we may lose control of the situation," Kiva said.

Army sources in Kyiv said that the information about rebels controlling Debaltseve is still being checked.

The pro-Russian fighters have repeatedly insisted that the truce deal does not apply to the strategic railway hub Debaltseve, claiming that the city is in their territory which gives them the right to continue fighting the government troops inside it.

"We do not have the right (to stop fighting for Debaltseve). It's even a moral thing. It's internal territory," Denis Pushilin, a senior separatist representative, told Reuters in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk.

"We have to respond to fire, to work on destroying the enemy's fighting positions."

Both sides to pull back the artillery

Under the truce deal brokered in Minsk last week, both sides were to pull their heavy weapons from the frontline, but the fighting in Debaltseve made both the army and the rebels appear hesitant to do so.

However, leader of one of two regions controlled by the separatists, said on Tuesday that the rebel forces were complying with an agreement to withdraw heavy weaponry from the front line in east Ukraine, Russia's TASS news agency reported.

"Yesterday I was on the front line and our tanks, our artillery are leaving. In fact, we started fulfilling our obligations last night," said Igor Plotnitsky, leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic.

Rebels in Donetsk have said they will not yet withdraw big guns.

dj/rc (AFP, Interfax, Reuters, AFP, dpa)