6 Ukrainian soldiers killed as clashes surge

Six Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and thirteen wounded in a fresh surge of fighting between pro-Russia rebels and government forces in the country’s war-torn east, Kiev said yesterday.“In the past 24 hours, to our great regret, as a result of the hostilities, six Ukrainian soldiers were killed and thirteen of our men wounded”, Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told journalists, adding that another eight soldiers were suffering from shell-shock.Motuzyanyk told AFP that the Ukrainian army suffered the majority of the losses in fierce shelling by insurgents overnight around the major rebel hub Lugansk and the government-held city of Mariupol.The latest deaths come after the government last Tuesday reported fighting had claimed the lives of seven servicemen in the highest one-day death toll in the conflict for two months.Ukraine and the rebels — who the West accuses Russia of directing — have agreed a series of ceasefires but they have failed to halt the violence. A peace deal to end the bloodshed has floundered and observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) say both sides seem to be bringing up more hardware.“Last week saw highest number of ceasefire violations in Lugansk region since September 2015”, the deputy chief of the monitoring mission, Alexander Hug, said on Friday. “Monitors keep hearing and seeing weapons that should be withdrawn in increasing numbers on both sides of contact line.”