Ukraine Reports First Soldier's Death from Rebel Fire in Month

Ukraine on Wednesday reported its first military fatality from pro-Russian rebel fire in a month as a fragile new truce in the separatist east faced one of its biggest tests to date.

The military in Kiev said the rebels shot at positions south of Avdiivka -- a northern suburb of the separatists self-declared proclaimed capital Donetsk.

"The bandits did not stop at their regular provocations and fired at our positions using barrel-mounted and automatic grenade launchers," the Ukrainian military said in a statement.

"One soldier was killed and two were injured."

The warring sides signed their latest in a series of ceasefire agreements on September 1.

The truce helped calm 18 months of clashes that have killed more than 8,000 people and sent Moscow's relations with the West crashing to their lowest point since the Cold War.

The two sides have also slowly begun withdrawing smaller weapons from a 30-kilometer-wide (19-mile-wide) buffer zone splitting rebel-held regions -- about the size and population of Wales -- from the rest of Ukraine.

The army reported two fatalities on September 14 under circumstances they did not explain. The rebels said they also lost a fighter last weekend on the outskirts of Donetsk.

Other army troops have died in mine incidents but not in open confrontation with the separatists.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said last week he thought the war was still not over but a "real truce" had finally begun.

The latest casualties were reported on Ukraine's Defenders of the Fatherland Day -- a sombre occasion that Kiev introduced after Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the subsequent revolt in the eastern provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk.

Poroshenko said in a keynote address devoted to the launch of a new military museum in Kiev that his former Soviet country still depended heavily on Western military equipment and political support.

"We do not need foreign soldiers," he said in nationally televised comments.

"But we are grateful to our foreign partners for providing us with non-lethal defensive equipment, which we have finally started to receive."

U.S. President Barack Obama recently allowed a shipment of high-tech radar to Ukraine that could help its forces better prepare for upcoming ground attacks.

But he has refused strong calls from the U.S. Congress to equip Ukraine with more sophisticated attack weapons that could recapture its economically vital industrial southeast.

Obama fears further infuriating Russian President Vladimir Putin -- a strongarm leader who denies either orchestrating or backing the eastern revolt -- and further prolonging the Ukrainian war.

NATO has also stepped up its military presence in the three former Soviet Baltic countries and other parts of eastern Europe that were once commanded by the Kremlin.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande are leading negotiations they had initially hoped could resolve Europe's bloodiest conflict since the Balkans wars of the 1990s by the end of the year.

Both leaders conceded after meeting Putin and Poroshenko in Paris on October 2 that their deadline would probably have to be pushed back into next year.

The Lugansk and Donetsk separatists have set up their own local elections for early 2016. Poroshenko has already denounced the ballot as "fake".