Insurgents kill 5 Ukraine soldiers

12 troops wounded as cease-fire crumbles in eastern region

An unidentified member of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine gets out of a vehicle next to Alexander Borodai, Prime Minister of the self proclaimed 'Donetsk People's Republic', left, on arrival in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine Saturday, June 28, 2014. Four members of the mission were released by officials of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic after several weeks of captivity. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
An unidentified member of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine gets out of a vehicle next to Alexander Borodai, Prime Minister of the self proclaimed 'Donetsk People's Republic', left, on arrival in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine Saturday, June 28, 2014. Four members of the mission were released by officials of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic after several weeks of captivity. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

KIEV, Ukraine -- Rebels killed five Ukrainian soldiers in violation of a truce extended by the country's government after the European Union gave Russia three days to quell the insurgency or face deeper sanctions.

Twelve soldiers also were wounded in the attacks by pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine's eastern region, government officials said.

The violence occurred as EU leaders in Brussels demanded Friday that the separatists, who Ukraine and its allies say are backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, abide by a cease-fire that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had extended through Monday, release hostages and start talks to implement a peace plan.

Rebel leaders agreed to the extension, according to news service Interfax. Still, the Defense Ministry in Kiev said Saturday's casualties occurred in two separate incidents.

"Despite peace initiatives by Ukraine's leadership and a unilateral cease-fire, the situation in the Eastern regions continues to escalate," the ministry said in a statement. "Insurgents are ignoring the peace plan to ease the situation in Ukraine's east and keep attacking troops."

In Saturday's violence, insurgents killed three soldiers and wounded four at a checkpoint in the Donetsk rebel stronghold of Slovyansk, military spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrashkovskyi said.

Two other soldiers were killed and eight were wounded in an attack by insurgents in the Luhansk region, he said. There were no details on rebel casualties.

More than 20 Ukrainian soldiers have died in rebel attacks since the cease-fire began, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said Friday.

The U.S. blames Putin for supporting rebels and stoking violence the United Nations says has killed more than 400 people in the country of more than 40 million. The U.S. is preparing sanctions against Russia on technology aimed at exploiting and producing oil and gas products, a major part of that country's economy, according to three people briefed on the plans.

The U.S. and European allies imposed sanctions about two months ago on a small number of people and companies close to Putin.

The U.S. is pushing Ukraine into conflict with Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday, adding that the government in Kiev must consult with those in the country who are seeking more autonomy.

"There are our partners from overseas, our American colleagues who, based on plentiful evidence, still prefer to push the Ukrainian authorities along the confrontational road," Lavrov said on state-run television.

He also said that while separatists in eastern Ukraine's self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk listen to Moscow, they don't respond to all requests from the Kremlin.

Poroshenko signed a free-trade pact Friday with the 28-member EU to bolster solidarity with the richer nations to Ukraine's west. He said the agreement showed Ukraine's "sovereign choice in favor of future membership of the EU."

"We're just looking to modernize our country," Poroshenko said in an interview in the French daily Le Figaro published Saturday. "We introduce freedom, democracy and rule of law, European values, and we're being attacked because of it."

Meanwhile Saturday, Pro-Russia insurgents released a second team of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who had been held captive since the end of May, the organization said.

Organization spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said that the four observers were released and met by an official from the security organization in Donetsk.

"They're in good health; they're in good spirits," he said.

The group lost contact with four monitors from its Donetsk team and four monitors from its Luhansk team in late May. The members of the Donetsk team were freed earlier last week.

The second release followed the EU summit Friday, where leaders decided not to impose new sanctions on Russia for destabilizing eastern Ukraine but gave the Russian government and pro-Russia insurgents until Monday to take steps to improve the situation.

The EU leaders said Russia and the rebels should work to release all captives, retreat from border checkpoints, agree on a way to verify the cease-fire and launch "substantial negotiations" on Poroshenko's peace plan.

"We have fulfilled our obligations before the Ukrainian side. All eight observers have been released," Alexander Borodai, one of the leaders of the insurgents, said after the release, according to news agency Interfax.

Information for this article was contributed by Volodymyr Verbyany, James G. Neuger, Daria Marchak, Daryna Krasnolutska, Kateryna Choursina, Patrick Donahue, Ewa Krukowska, Scott Rose, Stepan Kravchenko, Roger Runningen, Phil Mattingly and Katherine A O'Neil of Bloomberg News and by Vladimir Isachenkov and David McHugh of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/29/2014

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