Ukraine leader, after losses, says situation 'difficult but controllable'

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, speaking on Thursday after the army lost a key town to separatists, said the situation in the conflict zone in the east was 'extraordinarily difficult... but controllable', Interfax news agency reported.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, speaking on Thursday after the army lost a key town to separatists, said the situation in the conflict zone in the east was "extraordinarily difficult... but controllable", Interfax news agency reported.

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Poroshenko, who was speaking at a meeting of top security chiefs after the town of Novoazovsk fell to Russian-backed separatists, said Russian troops had come "to the rescue" of the rebels after Kiev's earlier military successes.

The loss of Novoazovsk, Ukraine's most south-easterly point, after a two-day assault by Russian-backed separatists in an armoured column, is a blow to government forces since it leaves vulnerable the big port city of Mariupol, further west along the coast.

Separately, a military spokesman said Ukrainian forces had regrouped to defend Mariupol and had enough troops to stop it being taken.

"The Ukrainian military have reinforced and are working out plans for a counter-offensive," the spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, told journalists.

A presidential spokesman in a Twitter post said that Poroshenko's central message to his security chiefs was: "We are capable of defending ourselves. The main thing is not to panic."