GENEVA -- The United Nations said Monday that a sharp escalation in the fighting in eastern Ukraine from mid-January to the middle of last month had left at least 842 people dead and more than 3,400 wounded, with hundreds missing and many buried without their deaths being recorded.
Ivan Simonovic, the U.N. assistant secretary-general, said in Geneva that more than 6,000 people had been killed since the fighting started in April.
The casualty figures were in a U.N. report issued Monday that also said an influx of troops and heavy weapons from Russia had intensified the conflict in Ukraine's east.
"Credible reports indicate a continuing influx of heavy and sophisticated weaponry to armed groups in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as foreign fighters, including from the Russian Federation," the U.N. said, reporting on developments over two months to mid-February.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is monitoring developments in Ukraine, had confirmed the inflow of troops and heavy weaponry from Russia, Simonovic said.
"This has fueled the escalation of the conflict and new offensives by armed groups, undermining the potential for peace as armed groups extend their areas of control," the report said. "This has resulted in further and significant increases in civilian and military casualties."
The report was issued as Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Switzerland to discuss the crisis in Ukraine.
Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said in a speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the cease-fire in Ukraine was being "consolidated" and that any decision by Western nations to send arms to Ukraine would "disrupt the peace."
President Barack Obama's administration has been considering whether to send arms to Ukraine to deter Russian-backed separatists and Russian troops from further advances, although the White House appears to have put off a decision in recent weeks.
Kerry said that to avoid further sanctions, Russia must arrange for the separatists to relax their grip on the strategically important town of Debaltseve, which they seized soon after a cease-fire reached last month in Minsk, Belarus, went into effect.
"There has been a kind of cherry-picking" by the Russians about what elements of the cease-fire to honor, Kerry told reporters at a news conference Monday. "There is not yet a full cease-fire."
Kerry said that he had raised his concerns about the seizing of Debaltseve and the presence of Russian-backed separatists near the port city of Mariupol during his morning meeting with Lavrov.
Kerry said that his Russian counterpart had insisted that the Kremlin intended to honor the cease-fire agreement and would respond to the points the United States had raised.
A rocket attack on Mariupol at the end of January killed 31 people, according to Simonovic, citing an example from the U.N. report of the growing use of heavy weapons by all sides and indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas.
The report also drew attention to the plight of civilians in areas of conflict, saying that attempted evacuations in government-controlled areas had apparently been targeted by shelling. But travel restrictions imposed by the government in Kiev had also made it harder for civilians to escape conflict areas, the U.N. said.
More than 400 civilians continue to be held prisoner by pro-Russian armed groups, the U.N. monitors reported, noting that an "all for all" prisoner exchange included in the cease-fire agreement signed last month in Minsk, Belarus, had not been fully enacted. The report also cited "a pattern of enforced disappearances, secret detention and ill treatment by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies."
Human-rights conditions in Crimea have also deteriorated, the U.N. said, citing political pressure and intimidation directed against opponents of the authorities in control of the territory.
The death of a Ukrainian news photographer in shelling over the weekend provided more evidence of the risks facing journalists in Ukraine, where 10 have died since the start of the year, Simonovic said.
A Section on 03/03/2015