INTERNATIONAL: Ukraine's top security official visited troops posted at the conflict zone between separatists and government troops in the Donetsk region as monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have reported a surge in shelling.

The Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council says ; “In the near future there will be a period when Russianswill attempt to do these attacks. Sadly, what suffers is most is the critical infrastructure, Today in Donetsk region, we have met with the head of the military-civilian government and learnt that two major water pumps have been damaged and there are problems with water for the population living in the Ukrainian controlled territory as well as in part of the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions."

“This is part of Russia's plan,” the secretary of NSFC has added. “ I can say for sure, it follows a scenario. Scenario written in Moscow and they (the separatists) just follow it. They do not even know what to say and when. They get sent a message, they open the message and say 'today we organise evacuation, tomorrow we do something else'. They do not even know what they will be supposed to do for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow."

The Ukranian Commander of the joint forces Oleksandr Pavuuk says for the past three days the front-line zones have been under fire. The enemy does all that is possible to force us to fire at populated areas by positioning the artillery that fires at us in between buildings inhabited by people. All in order to then accuse us of genocide, of killing the people of Donbas. You understand yourself why it is being done. We only respond when there is a genuine threat to our servicemen and it happened at a populated area. Sadly we have to do it in order to protect the local population, innocent people,"

Before the shelling started there have been provocative accusations that Ukranian soldiers are firing at them though neither OSCE nor trilateral contact group have reported a single case of Ukraine firing today. It is a planned propaganda action, it is information war.

The two Russian-backed, self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions are at the centre of a surge in tensions between Moscow and the West over a vast Russian military buildup near Ukraine.

The OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission that is deployed in the conflict zone has said it had logged 553 explosions in Donetsk.

A further 860 were reported in neighbouring Luhansk.

Western countries have said they think the shelling, which began on Thursday ,February 17, and intensified since, could be part of an attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin's government to create a pretext to justify an attack on Ukraine.

Russia says it has no such intention and accuses the West of irresponsible fear-mongering.