Moscow – Fighting between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine has intensified amid reports of shelling in dozens of civilian areas.
The Ukrainian military on Friday reported that another six soldiers dead, raising the number of military casualties to no fewer than 16 over the past week.
The flare-up in the simmering three-year-old conflict coincided with Ukraine assuming the month-long presidency of the UN Security Council.
The government reported no less than two civilians killed around the industrial town of Avdiivka, in the war-torn Donetsk region, which borders Russia.
The state’s Anti-Terrorist Operation said in a statement on its Facebook page that several other civilians were wounded, including a British photojournalist.
Russia accused the Ukrainian military of heavy overnight shelling of the rebel stronghold city of Donetsk, with several civilians killed.
“This barbarous attack cannot be justified,’’ Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in comments.
She denounced the shelling of the city as a violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in times of war.
The rebel-aligned Donetsk News Agency reported that 28 townships had been fired upon in the recent surge in fighting.
The conflict erupted in early 2014 in response to Ukraine ousting its pro-Russian president amid mass protests calling for closer ties with the West.
Russia condemned the ouster as a Western-orchestrated coup and responded by annexing Ukraine’s southern peninsula of Crimea, the site of a major Russian naval base and supporting a Moscow-loyal separatist rebellion in Ukraine’s east.
According to estimates by the UN, almost 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict.