UKRAINE’S government and anti-Kiev rebels traded accusations today of hitting a refugee convoy of buses with rocket fire near Lugansk, killing people trapped in the burning vehicles.

Ukrainian military spokesmen claimed that rebel missile fire on the buses had caused an unknown number of casualties.

“A powerful artillery strike hit a refugee convoy near the area of Khryashchuvatye and Novosvitlivka.

“The force of the blow on the convoy was so strong that people were burned alive in the vehicles — they weren’t able to get themselves out,” said Kiev military spokesman Anatoly Proshin.

But senior rebel leader Andrei Purgin retorted that his forces didn’t have the military capability to conduct such an attack and said government forces regularly attacked the area with Grad missiles.

“The Ukrainians themselves have bombed the road constantly with aeroplanes and Grads,” he said.

“It seems they’ve killed more civilians, like they’ve been doing for months now. We don’t have the ability to send Grads into that territory,” said Mr Purgin, who is deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said all issues around a humanitarian convoy sent by Moscow to eastern Ukraine had been resolved.

The 260-lorry convoy sent by Russia carrying tons of desperately needed humanitarian aid has been stalled at the Ukrainian border and Mr Lavrov was keen to see it progress to its destination.

But Kiev has insisted on searching the lorries before the aid they carry is distributed by the Red Cross.