Clashes between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed rebels left two more dead in a flashpoint town Friday and five others elsewhere in bloodshed that has prompted the US to condemn Russia's "aggressive" stance. The latest reports from both sides take the death toll in fighting since Sunday in the eastern war zone to 32 - a figure that has not been reached since the height of the war in 2014 and 2015.
The US criticism of Moscow will be welcomed in Kiev, particularly worried about losing Washington's support as new President Donald Trump seeks to mend ties with Russia's Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian forces and the rebels have been exchanging mortar and rocket fire near the front line town of Avdiivka just north of the pro-Russian rebels' de facto capital of Donetsk.
The Ukrainian army said the latest fatal victims were a local woman and an emergency worker in Avdiivka. The toll in the blue-collar town where a giant coke plant employs almost the entire population of 25,000 people now stands at 27. Authorities said that three soldiers had also been killed in other parts of eastern Ukraine in which pro-Russian insurgency has raged since April 2014.
The rebels also said that shelling by the Ukrainian army had reportedly killed two civilians in Donetsk. Ukraine and Russia have traded blame over who started the violence and who was responsible for the deaths. AFP reporters in Avdiivka said Friday the shelling had died down considerably in the town itself and that only sporadic echoes of mortar fire could be heard on its outskirts. The separatists' sudden assault came after a month-long spell of relative calm in the 33-month war and sharpened the world's focus on the bloodshed in the European Union's back yard.
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