A Ukrainian soldier was killed on the front line with pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, the army said on Friday, amid fears of an escalation between Kiev and Moscow.
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The soldier was shot and killed, the army said, accusing the separatists of also firing at Ukrainian positions using tanks, artillery, grenade launchers, mortars and machine guns.
Tension has mounted in recent months on the front line with the separatists, where Ukraine has lost around 30 soldiers since the start of the year compared to 50 for the whole of the previous year. The pro-Russian rebels have reported twenty deaths among its fighters since January. In April, Moscow, widely regarded as the military godfather of the separatists, also massed up to 100,000 soldiers on the Ukrainian border and on the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, raising fears of a large-scale Russian offensive, even an invasion.
If Russia assured that these were military exercises which "
threatened no one
" and announced on April 23 the withdrawal of its troops, this one remains partial and too slow, according to Kiev and the West.
The withdrawal "
continues, but the number of Russian troops withdrawn does not allow the conclusion that the threat of military aggression has passed,
" Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Taran said in a statement this week.
The war in Ukraine has claimed more than 13,000 lives and around 1.5 million displaced since it began in April 2014, just after Moscow's annexation of Crimea in the wake of a pro-Western revolution in Kiev.
