Amid rising tensions, OSCE reports more than 3,000 new ceasefires violations in eastern Ukraine

Monitors from theOSCEEuropean security body on Monday reported more than 3,000 new ceasefire violations in easternUkraine, a high for the year.

Thereportreflects a sharp spike in violence that preceded President Vladimir Putin's decision to order Russian troops into two Moscow-backed rebel regions he recognised as independent earlier in the day.

"It is of crucial importance that today's decision will not lead to new military action and bloodshed," Mikko Kinnunen, theOSCE's chairman-in-office inUkraine, said in a statement.

In a dailyreportbased on information received by Sunday evening, the pan-European security body reported 2,158 newviolationsin the Donetsk region and another 1,073 in neighbouring Lugansk.

The monitors reported heavy clashes spreading across the frontline separating rebel forces from government troops in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

The eight-year conflict across the largely Russian-speaking industrial region has claimedmorethan14,000lives, breaking out after two regions rebelled over a 2014 pro-EU revolution in Kyiv.