The UN Security Council has strongly condemned a rocket attack on a bus in east Ukraine that left 11 civilians dead.
In a unanimous statement of the 15 members including Russia, the council called for an investigation to bring those responsible for the attack to justice.
The council "condemned in the strongest terms the killing of eleven and injuring of seventeen civilians as a result of the shelling of a passenger bus in Volnovakha, Donetsk region," said the statement.
Both separatist leaders and Kiev military commanders rejected responsibility.
Donetsk regional interior ministry department chief Vyacheslav Abroskin said the long-range Grad rocket appeared to have gone astray after being fired at a Ukrainian military checkpoint.
"It was a direct hit on an intercity bus," Abroskin said by telephone.
Ukrainian General Bogdan Bondar told parliament that the rebels had staged "a provocation" by launching their strike from a residential area in the hope of drawing retaliatory fire from state soldiers that would kill scores of civilians.
"I very much doubt that we could have hit anything as far away as Volnovakha from our positions," Donetsk separatist co-leader Andrei Purgin said.
"You can see on the map that it is very far away from our nearest roadblock."
Donetsk deputy separatist forces' commander Eduard Basurin also denied rebel involvement.
"No one fired at anything," he told Russia's RIA Novosti state news agency.
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