By Nur Ashikin Abdul Aziz

Ukraine will include evidence of Russia's involvement in the recent escalation of tension in eastern Ukraine when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) holds its first public hearings on Kyiv's lawsuit against Russia in March.

Ukrainian Ambassador to Malaysia, Olexander Nechytaylo, said that Ukraine has documented evidence of shellings of residential areas at the Avdiyivka town.

"Ukraine will add these files as another evidence in the case against Russia at the ICJ under the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism," he said in an email response to Bernama on the recent spike of violence in Eastern Ukraine.

He also said that as the current President of the UN Security Council, Ukraine has called for an emergency meeting Thursday, to address the situation in Donbas and to call upon Russia to cease its disruptive activities in Ukraine.

Both Ukraine and Russia have been accusing each other of launching the attacks in Avdiyikvka, a town on Ukrainian government-controlled territory, in violation of the Minsk truce agreements signed in September 2014 and again in February 2015.

The agreements among others, called for full ceasefire and withdrawal of all heavy weapons from the frontline. According to reports, there have been over 5,000 ceasefire violations in the past week, in eastern Ukraine

Ukraine filed the suit against Russia at the United Nations's (UN) top court on Jan 16, accusing Russia of sponsoring "terrorism" and illicitly funding separatist rebel groups.

It had also included the downing of MH17 as part of the proceedings instituted in the ICJ at the Hague in the Netherlands. The MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over Eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 killing all 283 passengers, including 80 children, and 15 crew members.

Nechytaylo said that massive indiscriminate shelling of residential areas of the town of Avdiyivka that resulted in civilian casualties and destruction of property have reminded him of the recent humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo, Syria.

He claimed that the Russian-backed attacks on Ukrainian forces over the weekend have led to the highest number of casualties in the past few months, saying that this was in clear violation of the Minsk Agreement.

The conflict between government troops and separatist in eastern Ukraine started since 2014 and has claimed some 10,000 lives, reports said.

-- BERNAMA