One Ukrainian soldier and one pro-Russian rebel have been killed in fighting between government forces and separatists in eastern Ukraine, officials said today.
Kiev military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said the serviceman was killed in shelling near the strategically important southeastern port city of Mariupol, which militants have tried to seize on repeated occasions since late August 2014.
Rebel authorities said one of their men was killed and another wounded in clashes that also broke out across other parts of the renegade Lugansk and Donetsk provinces.
Fighting between insurgents and the Ukrainian army has killed almost 6,300 people since mid-April 2014, when parts of the ex-Soviet state's east rebelled against Kiev's new pro-Western leadership.
Despite a wobbly truce that all sides agreed to under pressure from the leaders of Germany and France, daily exchanges of mortar and artillery fire continue and the number of military and civilian casualties is growing.
