UKRAINIAN President Petro Poroshenko vowed vengeance today after a rocket strike in the eastern Lugansk region killed at least 19 government troops. 

Kiev officials blamed the deaths on separatist rebels who had fired a barrage of Grad rockets at troops in Zelenopillya, a village near the Russian border.

The rebels reported that they had “destroyed a column” of troops which are thought to be part of a motorised brigade from Lviv in western Ukraine.

President Poroshenko threatened retaliation, blustering: “For every soldier’s life, the militants will pay with tens and hundreds of their own.

“Not a single terrorist will avoid responsibility. Each will get what they deserve,” he said, in a statement posted on his website after an emergency meeting of security chiefs.

Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesman Volodymyr Seleznyov put at 23 the number of troops killed in clashes in the previous 24 hours, with a further 93 wounded. 

Earlier media reports about the rocket strike had spoken of up to 30 killed, but they were inaccurate, he said.

Russian-made Grad rockets are heavy artillery weapons fired in batches from lorries. Both the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces use them.

The rebels also shelled Ukrainian troops at Donetsk airport on Thursday night.

They have regrouped in Donetsk as the Ukrainian military has retaken territory in the country’s east, but have not yet broken through to the airport.

n Amnesty International accused separatists of abuses in the three-month conflict yesterday, saying that it had found “graphic and compelling evidence of savage beatings and other torture” by pro-Russian groups and a smaller number of abuses by government forces.