Ukraine Says Five Soldiers Killed as Talks Resume over Truce

Ukraine said Wednesday that five Ukrainian soldiers were killed as fresh clashes rumbled on despite the resumption of talks between the government and rebels over a battered truce deal.

Over the past 24 hours four servicemen died when their armored vehicle hit a landmine close to the frontline town of Avdiivka in the ravaged east, while a fifth was killed in an insurgent ambush and a further 12 wounded, Ukrainian spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.

The latest casualties come as Ukrainian and separatist representatives met in Minsk for the first time since the two sides inked a shaky peace deal in February that dampened much of the fighting but failed to halt clashes at key hotspots.

Negotiators from the warring sides held talks with international mediators and officials from Russia -- which Kiev accuses of masterminding the conflict -- in the Belarussian capital to discuss the battered truce and a convoluted political roadmap for ending the conflict.

Both Kiev and the insurgents accuse each other of continuing to violate the ceasefire deal despite claims from both that they have withdrawn heavy weapons from the frontline in accordance with the agreement.

Kiev spokesman Lysenko said that rebels continued to bombard government positions with 152mm cannons around Mariupol, the largest remaining Ukrainian-controlled city in the conflict zone, and areas around the rebel stronghold of Donetsk.

The United Nations says that over 6,100 people have died in more than a year of fighting that has ravaged Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland and pitched Russia into a bitter standoff with the West.

The resumption of talks in Minsk -- where the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany hammered out the February deal at a marathon meeting -- is aimed at shoring up the tenuous truce.

"Neither Ukraine nor its international partners will allow any revisions of the Minsk agreements," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in a statement ahead of the talks.

"The first key point towards fulfilling the Minsk agreement is ensuring a comprehensive ceasefire," he said.

The two sides are also set to move towards discussing a raft of contentious political steps contained in the peace plan that include holding elections under Ukrainian law and eventual autonomy in the separatist zones.

Separatist officials say that they will push for Kiev to lift an economic blockade that it has effectively imposed on the rebel territories by cutting off welfare payments to those still living there.

Nervous European nations are closely watching the implementation of the Minsk deal that, however flawed, is still seen as the best hope of keeping a lid on the violence wracking the region.

Italy's Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni reiterated Western backing for the European-mediated peace deal during a visit to Kiev and said that if it sticks it could help lessen tensions with Moscow.

"The Minsk accords have to be implemented fully," Gentiloni said after meeting Poroshenko.

"That would allow us to have less negative relations with Russia."

Europe and the United States have slapped the toughest sanctions since the Cold War on Moscow over allegations that it is behind the separatist rebellion.