Fighting rages between army and separatists in eastern Ukraine

Fighting raged in eastern Ukraine for the second straight day on Tuesday as the army rolled out an offensive against pro-Russia separatists holding the city of Slavyansk and claimed to have inflicted losses on the rebels.

Rebels in the town, a fierce separatist stronghold where a military helicopter was shot down last week killing 14 servicemen, said they had brought down a Su-25 attack aircraft and a helicopter, but this was denied by Ukrainian authorities.

The fighting in Slavyansk followed a day-long fire-fight on Monday in Luhansk, a town further east on the border with Russia, after an attack by separatists on a border guard camp.

At least two people were killed in the city centre of Luhansk, which like Slavyansk is under separatist control, by a blast which rebels said came from a Ukrainian air strike but which the Ukrainians said was caused by a misfire of a heat-seeking missile by the rebels.

Reports of fresh fighting coincided with Ukraine announcing that 59 servicemen had been killed in clashes with rebels since hostilities broke out in the east in April.

“In Donetsk and Luhansk regions 181 people have been killed and 293 wounded by terrorist activity including 59 servicemen,” general prosecutor Oleh Makhnitsky told a news conference.