Ukrainian defence official Andriy Parubiy accused Moscow of letting rebels attack border posts from Russian territory yesterday, even as he boasted of having recaptured more than a dozen eastern villages from local forces.

Kiev’s National Security Council secretary, who is a member of the neonazi Svoboda (Freedom) party, also claimed that Russia was massing troops near its border with Ukraine.

There was no immediate response from Moscow to either of Mr Parubiy’s statements, which were delivered as President Petro Poroshenko expressed a willingness to take part in new peace talks as early as today.

Mr Poroshenko said that his government had proposed a place and a time for talks but had not heard back from the other parties.

Representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the eastern rebels in Donetsk and Lugansk took part in earlier talks along with representatives of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Mr Parubiy said that government forces were attacking rebel positions in eastern Ukraine with artillery and planes and that 17 villages had been recaptured since a unilateral ceasefire expired Monday.

He said that pro-Kiev forces now control 23 of the 36 local regions within Donetsk and Lugansk provinces, the two regions along the Russian border that have declared independence.

Government forces are not in control, however, of the regions’ two main cities.

“Fighting aiming at defending the border and liquidating rebels in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions continues,” Mr Parubiy told a news conference in Kiev.

“This is taking place during the constant movement of military equipment and armed forces of the Russian Federation close to Ukraine’s border.”

Rebel units in Lugansk province claimed yesterday to have killed 125 Ukrainian troops, destroyed nine armoured vehicles and downed three combat aircraft since Wednesday.

They shelled the Donetsk airport overnight and a radar or communications tower there was still burning yesterday.

Ukraine says that Russia is arming and supporting separatists in the east, which Moscow denies.

The rebels have asked to join Russia and Russian nationalists have urged Vladimir Putin to send troops into Ukraine, but the Russian president has resisted those demands for fear of further complicating a difficult situation.