KIEV, Ukraine (AFP) – by Olga SHYLENKO
Ukraine on Friday reported its first combat death since a new ceasefire with pro-Russian rebels went into effect on September 1 before the new school year.
The announcement delivered a worrying signal that one of the most enduring in a series of truces risked collapsing just as tensions between Moscow and Kiev are scaling new hights.
“In the past day, as a result of military activities, one of our soldiers died and two were wounded,” Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters.
Lysenko said rebels attacked Mariinka — a flashpoint town that straddles the buffer zone between the warring sides’ forces.
Ukraine had previously reported the accidental death of two soldiers in incidents involving a tripwire and one of the many landmines that litter the former Soviet republic’s devastated eastern industrial war zone.
Lysenko added that the rebels had also violated the truce by shelling the vicinity of Mariupol with heavy weapons banned by current agreements.
The government-held industrial port has been repeatedly targeted because it provides a land bridge between separatist-held regions and Russian-annexed Crimea.
New European peace push
The warring sides approved their latest truce on August 26 in Minsk — the Belarussian capital where a February 2015 peace deal was signed with the help of the leaders of Germany and France.
But that agreement and the subsequent series of armistices have done little to halt a war that has claimed nearly 9,600 lives over its 28 months and driven about two million people from their homes.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and his Germany counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier are due to arrive in Kiev on Wednesday in a new bid to help put an end to one of Europe’s deadliest conflicts since the 1990s Balkans Wars.
The previous ceasefire in April was followed by two months of what monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) described as fighting that approached full-scale warfare.
Kiev has been put on further edge this week by Russia’s decision to conduct military drills near the Crimea peninsula it snatched from Ukraine in March 2014.
Ukraine and its allies accuse the Kremlin of plotting and backing the revolt with active troops and heavy weapons in order to keep the pro-Western leaders in Kiev dependent on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s whims.
Putin denies the charges and says Russians spotted or captured in the war zone were either volunteers or off-duty troops.