Seven killed in renewed fighting in Ukraine

At least seven people were killed and 20 wounded in the past 24 hours in renewed fighting in eastern Ukraine, reports said on Tuesday.

Government military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that six Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 12 injured in clashes with pro-independence insurgents in the past one day, which marked the highest daily casualty toll of the Ukrainian army in a month, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The situation in the region is unstable, armed provocations continue in almost all areas along the frontline," Lysenko said.

The fighting has been particularly intense in the area lying between the rebel-held territories in the north of Donetsk region and the government-controlled southern port city of Mariupol, Lysenko said.

In Dzerzhinsk, two boys, aged 14 and 17 years, were wounded during shelling in the outskirts of the town, a regional department of the interior ministry said in a statement.

In a separate incident, a television cameraman working for Russian Zvezda TV channel was severely injured after a landmine exploded near him in the Mariupol area, media reported.

According to the self-styled defence ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, one insurgent soldier was killed and five others wounded in the previous day's confrontation.

The spike in violence in the eastern regions came amid a new round of peace talks on the Ukraine crisis held in Berlin late Monday, involving the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France.

Since the conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine a year ago, more than 6,000 people were killed and over 14,000 others wounded.