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 There were also reports of an air strike killing four civilians in
the small town of Snizhne, for which Kiev denied responsibility and
appeared to point a finger at Russia - two days after Moscow
threatened retaliation for the death of man when a shell landed on
the Russian side of the border.
"Today at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) an unknown plane carried out a bombing
attack on Snizhne. The flight can be described only as a cynical
provocation," Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's National
Defence and Security Council, told reporters.
His remarks appeared to be an accusation against Russia, since the
rebels have not used aircraft in the conflict.
 Fighting over the past four months between forces of the pro-Western
Kiev government and separatists who want union with Moscow has
intensified since last Friday, with Ukraine and Russia blaming each
other for cross-border attacks and little prospect of a ceasefire.
Vladyslav Seleznyov, spokesman for Kiev's "anti-terrorist operation"
in the east, said rebel fighters had attacked military posts in
several different areas overnight.
"As a result of a Grad missile attack during the night, two
Ukrainian soldiers received fatal wounds," he told Fifth Channel
television.
Security council spokesman Lysenko said six Ukrainian soldiers in
all had died in the past day and 13 were wounded.
CIVILIAN DEATHS
Municipal officials said at least four civilians had been killed in
Snizhne, 20 km (12 miles) from the border with Russia, in what
separatist rebels said had been an air strike by a Ukrainian
warplane.
A separatist spokesman, quoted by Russia's Interfax news agency,
said 10 people had been killed.
Government officials, however, that flights by Ukrainian warplanes
had been suspended since Monday when a Ukrainian Antonov An-26
transport plane, carrying eight people, was downed in a rocket
attack which Kiev said may have come from Russian territory.
 Lysenko said two of the crew who survived appeared to have been
taken captive.
Ukraine has said there is now clear evidence of direct Russian
involvement in the fighting which intensified over the weekend with
Ukrainian air strikes on rebel positions.
Well over 200 Ukrainian servicemen have been killed as well as
hundreds of civilians and rebels since violence erupted in Ukraine's
Russian-speaking east following a pro-Europe revolt in Kiev that
ousted a Moscow-backed president in February and led to Russia's
annexation of Crimea.
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, pressing the European Union to
take a harder line with Moscow possibly involving new tougher
sanctions, said on Monday that Russian military officers were now
fighting alongside separatists and heavy military equipment is
pouring across the border from Russia.
Poroshenko, elected in late May, refused on June 30 to extend a
10-day unilateral ceasefire which he said had been breached
repeatedly by the separatists. He renewed the government's military
campaign to break rebel resistance.
The separatists, who have set up 'people's republics', have been
pushed back into the main eastern city of Donetsk, though they
remain also in control of the border city of Luhansk.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in a new peace
effort, said a diplomatic contact group might talk to separatists by
video conference on Tuesday and meet them in person soon afterwards.
He said all parties were making a "strong effort" for the group -
which includes Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe - to hold the video conference and agree a
venue for a direct meeting with the rebels.
Moscow has invited foreign military attaches to visit the Russian
town hit by fatal shelling on Sunday, an event for which it
threatened "irreversible consequences". Ukraine denied that its
armed forces were responsible for the incident.
(Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly in Moscow; Writing by Richard
Balmforth; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
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