BBC Online :
A leading human rights group says it has strong evidence Ukraine attacked populated areas of Donetsk with cluster bombs, banned by many other states.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) accuses the army of using the deadly weapon, which scatters bomblets, to shell the rebel-held eastern city earlier this month.
Ukraine did not sign up to the 2008 global treaty banning cluster bombs.
But a Ukrainian security spokesman said Ukraine did not use “banned weapons” or shell civilian areas.
Meanwhile, new talks are due on Ukraine’s gas dispute with Russia. Officials are set to meet in Brussels to discuss Ukraine’s gas debt and payment schedule amid hopes that Russia will restore supplies cut in June, before the onset of winter.
Russia is accused of using gas as a political tool against Ukraine, where a conflict with pro-Russian separatist rebels in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk has claimed at least 3,700 lives since April.
A ceasefire agreed on 5 September has not ended the fighting.
In a separate development, a senior Polish official has alleged that Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested partitioning Ukraine with Poland six years ago in a conversation with Donald Tusk, who was Poland’s prime minister at the time.
In its report, the New-York based rights group said use of cluster munitions in Donetsk this month was “widespread
