At least nine people including four Ukrainian
servicemen have been reported killed in the east
of the country, where government forces are
fighting pro-Russian separatists.
Two soldiers and at least one border guard were
killed after their armoured vehicle drove over a
mine on Friday near Dovzhansky, on Ukraine's
border with Russia.
Vladyslav Seleznyov, a military spokesman, said a
soldier was also killed in an incident near the
town of Karlovka in the region of Donetsk, the
main city where rebel fighters are holding out
against the government forces.
He said at least 50 separatist fighters had been
killed in the last few days following air attacks
against rebel positions near the border with
Russia.
The dead also included five coal miners who were
killed on Friday after the bus they were travelling
in came under mortar fire, Ukrainian television
reported a doctor as saying, in the region of
Chervonopartizansk near the border with Russia.
There was no immediate comment from the
rebels.
The shelling of the bus forced energy and coal
processing company DTEK, which employed the
miners, to suspend operations at four mines in
the economically depressed industrial province of
Luhansk, Interfax news agency quoted the
company's general director as saying.
The government forces have gained the upper
hand in the three-month-old conflict in the
Russian-speaking eastern regions in which more
than 200 government troops have been killed
as well as hundreds of civilians and rebel fighters.
Meanwhile, Russia closed three major
border crossings with Ukraine.
Russian news agencies on Friday quoted Vasily
Malayev, a spokesman for the security services in
the Rostov region, as saying that three
crossings east of Donetsk were temporarily closed
late Thursday night because of fighting on the
other side.
Ukraine said it regained control of one crossing
which had been controlled by rebels.
