Clashes between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed rebels left two more dead in a flashpoint town today and five others elsewhere in bloodshed that has prompted the US to condemn Russia's "aggressive" stance.
The latest reports from both sides take the death toll in fighting since Sunday in the eastern war zone to 32 -- a figure that has not been reached since the height of the war in 2014 and 2015.
The US criticism of Moscow will be welcomed in Kiev, particularly worried about losing Washington's support as new President Donald Trump seeks to mend ties with Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian forces and the rebels have been exchanging mortar and rocket fire near the front line town of Avdiivka just north of the pro-Russian rebels' de facto capital of Donetsk.
The Ukrainian army said the latest fatal victims were a local woman and an emergency worker in Avdiivka. The toll in the blue-collar town where a giant coke plant employs almost the entire population of 25,000 people now stands at 27.
Authorities said that three soldiers had also been killed in other parts of eastern Ukraine in which pro-Russian insurgency has raged since April 2014.
The rebels also said that shelling by the Ukrainian army had reportedly killed two civilians in Donetsk.
Ukraine and Russia have traded blame over who started the violence and who was responsible for the deaths.
AFP reporters in Avdiivka said today the shelling had died down considerably in the town itself and that only sporadic echoes of mortar fire could be heard on its outskirts.
The separatists' sudden assault came after a month-long spell of relative calm in the 33-month war and sharpened the world's focus on the bloodshed in the European Union's back yard.
The conflict began less than two months after Ukraine ousted its Russian-back leader in February 2014.
Moscow responded by annexing Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March 2014 and then allegedly plotting the eastern insurgency to keep Ukraine under its thumb after its tilt toward the West.
The Kremlin sees most of the former Soviet Union as part of its geopolitical sphere of influence -- a stance strongly disputed by the United States and European leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The United States' UN ambassador Nikki Haley has condemned Russia's "aggressive actions" in Ukraine.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov countered that "without question, we dispute (Haley's) position".
Moscow, he said, continues "to coherently explain our own to all members of the UN Security Council and our other partners, including the permanent representative from the United States".
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