At least nine people, including seven soldiers, have been killed in fighting in east Ukraine over the past 24 hours as separatist rebels continued to push their offensive, officials said Monday.
“As a result of shelling, Ukraine has lost seven soldiers while 24 were injured,” army spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said.
The governor of the separatist Luhansk region also reported two civilians killed.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine had mainly died down following a September ceasefire, but in recent days the war has returned in full force, with the rebels announcing the effective end of the truce and an offensive to expand territory under their control.
At least 30 were killed and nearly 100 injured by a barrage of rocket fire in the port city of Mariupol on Saturday. Observers said the rockets had been fired from the direction of rebel-held territory.
That was followed by new attacks on Sunday against government positions elsewhere along the front line that winds through Luhansk and Donetsk, the Kiev army said.
“Rebels are attacking the positions of anti-terrorist operation troops extremely intensively, using artillery, mortars, grenade launchers, tanks,” military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said in a televised briefing.
Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Black Sea still controlled by Ukrainian forces, has been a symbolic bulwark against the separatist advance. If captured by the rebels, it would give them a land corridor to Russia-controlled Crimea.
The city had been relatively quiet for months before the Sunday attack.
There was no fighting in Mariupol early Monday. A road leading out of the city into rebel territory was closed off by Ukrainian forces, making it unclear whether the rebels had advanced closer to the city outskirts. The city streets were quiet as the families of those killed Sunday gathered to bury their dead.
The rebels have also vowed to encircle the strategically important town of Debaltseve, where Seleznyov said fighting was the most intense overnight Sunday.
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