The clashes, near Mariupol in the southeast and at Gorlivka, a
rebel-held town, formed part of an upsurge in violence which put
further strain on a fragile ceasefire between the two sides.
Regional police in Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, said at
least one man and a young woman were killed when rebels shelled the
town of Sartan, about 20 km (12 miles) away on Sunday. Several
people, including a 10-year-old girl, were taken to hospital with
wounds.
"On one street there were five houses which had been really badly
damaged by shell fragments. One house had a well-tended garden with
vines and a vegetable patch. But the house had been wrecked by
shells and I saw an enormous pool of blood," a local news
photographer, Mykola Ryabchenko, told Reuters by telephone.
The separatist website, DAN, said at least three people had been
killed and four wounded as a result of government shelling of
Gorlivka, a regular frontline hot spot
northeast of the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk.
There was no immediate government confirmation of this report.
"They were using heavy weapons. We have three men dead. Another four
have various injuries," DAN quoted the separatist mayor of the town
as saying.
The upsurge in fighting weighed on the Russian rouble on Monday. It
touched a six-month low against the dollar, dropping 1 percent.
It has also drawn expressions of concern among Western governments,
who see a ceasefire and tentative peace agreement worked out in
Minsk, Belarus, as still the best chance of ending the separatist
rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
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Many artillery guns, tanks and other heavy weapons have been
withdrawn by both sides under the terms of the Minsk agreement in
February, but deaths occur regularly in sporadic outbursts of
fighting.
More than 6,500 people have been killed in the conflict which
erupted in April 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea, in reaction to
the fall of a Moscow-backed president in Kiev, and threw its support
behind separatists in the east.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last week expressed "grave
concern" to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over the rise in
separatist attacks and urged an immediate ceasefire, the State
Department said.
In a newspaper interview, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier said the situation was explosive and he urged both
parties in the conflict to come together quickly to prevent a spiral
in violence.
(Writing By Richard Balmforth; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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