UN says Ukraine attack 'targeted civilians' as Putin defiant

MOSCOW: The United Nations said on Monday (Tuesday in Manila) that a rocket attack that killed 30 people in a city in eastern Ukraine deliberately targeted civilians, as Russian President Vladimir Putin spurned Western calls to rein in a pro-Moscow insurgency.

A senior UN official told an emergency Security Council meeting that the deadly rocket barrage on the port city of Mariupol came from pro-Russian rebel-controlled territory and sought to strike a civilian population, in violation of international humanitarian law.