Kiev - Ukraine said on Tuesday seven of its
soldiers had been killed and 14 wounded in "very heated" fighting that
marked the bloodiest clashes with pro-Russian separatists in two months.
The announcement - the highest daily death toll
since Ukraine reported seven of its soldiers dying on May 24 - follows a flurry
of talks between world leaders and Moscow on halting the 26-month war.
"In the past 24 hours, as a result of military
operations, seven Ukrainian servicemen died and 14 were injured," military
spokesperson Andriy Lysenko told reporters.
Lysenko told AFP the fighting had "become
very, very heated" in the past few days.
"Things have escalated for the simple reason
that this is what (the rebels) want," Lysenko said. "They do not want
to live in peace."
The former Soviet republic has been riven by
clashes that have claimed nearly 9 500 lives and shattered Moscow's relations
with the West.
The resulting chill in relations has complicated
the West's work with Moscow in trying to bring an end to the Syrian war - a
conflict that has seen Russia continue to back the ruling regime and bombard
areas controlled by US-backed rebel groups.
Ukraine
vows swift revenge
The bloodshed drew a vow of immediate revenge from
the Ukrainian armed forces chief of staff.
"Our soul cries for each of our soldiers who
lost their lives for Ukraine," Viktor Muzhenko wrote on Facebook. "We
will deliver an appropriate response!"
The latest violence follows a series of
negotiations between EU leaders and Putin about ways to resolve one of Europe's
bloodiest conflicts since the 1990s Balkans wars.
US Secretary of State John Kerry also raised the
issue during a visit to Moscow last week.
But neither Kiev nor the insurgents have followed
the steps agreed upon in a February 2015 truce deal negotiated with the help of
Germany and France.
Monitors from the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) report that neither side has withdrawn its heaviest
weapons from the front line - one of the first points of the pact.
The heaviest clashes have come along the
30-kilometre-wide buffer zone the sides agreed to set up during last year's
peace negotiations in the Belarussian capital Minsk.
The self-proclaimed "people's republics"
of Donetsk and Lugansk now control swathes of the Ukrainian industrial
heartland and are hoping to stage their own elections that would effectively
split them away from Kiev.
Ukraine counters that the polls must be conducted
under its own rules and result in the rebel-run regions enjoying only partial
autonomy for a set number of years.
The rebels said on Tuesday that Donetsk separatist
leader Aleksander Zakharchenko signed a petition addressed to the UN Security
Council demanding that it put more pressure on Kiev to end the bloodshed in the EU's backyard.
