'One Killed' in Eastern Ukraine Clashes despite Truce

W460

One person was killed and another three wounded Saturday in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, a pro-Moscow rebel bastion, as clashes broke a ceasefire that had held for several weeks, separatist and loyalist sources said.

According to the rebels, Ukrainian army fire killed one fighter and wounded two others near an airport smashed by months of fighting in the outskirts of separatist "capital" Donetsk.

The Ukrainian army denied responsibility for the casualties claimed by the separatists, while reporting a soldier from its ranks was wounded.

"We came under heavy machine-gun and grenade-launcher fire" from the airport, army spokesman Oleksandr Zavtonov told Agence France Presse.

"We retaliated using firearms so that we could evacuate a wounded person, but those forbidden (by a fragile peace deal) were not used," he added.

Rebel military leader Eduard Basurin told AFP the three casualties on his side were all fighters.

It was unclear what weapons had been fired, with the rebels first claiming Ukrainian forces had used tank fire, and then saying there were mortar rounds.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), whose observers are deployed in eastern Ukraine, could not immediately comment on the incident.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 8,000 people since it broke out in April 2014. Following a fresh truce agreement, violence in the area has been extremely rare since early September.

In line with the ongoing peace process, the warring parties claim they have withdrawn all heavy weapons of a caliber higher than 100 mm from the frontline, but the OSCE says neither side has yet fully pulled out its arms.

The smaller arms withdrawal began in the nearby rebel region of Lugansk in early October and continued Saturday. The process has not yet begun in Donetsk however.

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