Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels today reported the death of eight people in fresh clashes that endanger nascent talks on a new truce agreement for the war-torn separatist east.
Government spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said seven Ukrainian servicemen had been killed and 13 injured in fighting that centred mostly around the pro-Russian republic of Donetsk.
"For the first time in several days, the enemy has resumed using artillery rockets," Motuzyanyk told reporters in Kiev.
The military command of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic said a Ukrainian sniper had killed one woman and shelling injured another 12 people overnight.
An upsurge in violence that broke out in mid-August and killed at least 20 people has renewed fears of full-scale warfare returning to the edge of the European Union's unstable eastern front.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande -- co-sponsors of increasingly-ineffective six-month-old armistice -- reaffirmed support for the deal on Monday during talks in Berlin with Ukraine's Western-backed leader Petro Poroshenko.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is overseeing a separate set of discussions between the warring sides and Russia aimed at resolving all political conflicts and halting the fighting by the year's end.
After another round of low-level talks in the Belarussian capital Minsk yesterday, the OSCE said the parties were ready to prepare a new temporary ceasefire that would be enforced around schools in the war zone once classes resume on September 1.
