Dozens of dead insurgents lay piled in a van outside a morgue, and a rebel said more were on the way.

Escalating events in Ukraine are a cause for great concern and have the potential to have a direct impact on our lives, especially if sanctions are imposed on energy-rich Russia.

Pro-Russian separatists who seized a provincial administration building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk have proclaimed the region an independent republic in a move echoing the run-up to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Ukraine accused Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, of orchestrating the seizure of state buildings in two eastern Ukrainian cities by pro-Russia protesters yesterday, in a further escalation of tension between Kiev and Moscow.