Ukraine military says one soldier killed in past Forty two hours in east

KIEV (Reuters) – One Ukrainian soldier was killed and another wounded fighting pro-Russian separatists in the east, a military spokesman said on Thursday, as Kiev accused rebels of increasing violations of a ceasefire deal.

President Petro Poroshenko, whose initiative to boost the armed forces by a third 250,000 personnel was passed easily in parliament, has called the ceasefire the last chance for peace with the pro-Russian rebels.

Accusations of continued violence on both sides show the fragility of the peace accord agreed in Minsk last month, which calls for the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the frontline.

Some 6,000 people have been killed in fighting since separatists took up arms last year in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland in response to the overthrow of the Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich in Kiev.

Interior Ministry adviser Zoryan Shkiryak said the rebels were not only failing to stop firing and pull back, but in fact building up forces in southern Donetsk province, near the Ukrainian-held port city of Mariupol.

“They are not withdrawing arms, they are not observing the ceasefire, they continue to relocate units and increase their number of tanks and rocket launchers,” he said.

Another military spokesman said rebels had attacked Ukrainian troop positions or civilian targets 40 times in the previous 24 hours, including 17 artillery attacks. The rebels accuse Ukrainian forces almost daily of shelling and firing.