'Soldier killed in east Ukraine despite truce with rebels'

A soldier has been killed in conflict-torn eastern Ukraine in the first such casualty among government forces in a month, Kiev said today.
Yesterday pro-Moscow rebels fired at government positions south of Avdiivka, an industrial town located just north of rebel hub Donetsk, the Ukrainian military said in a statement on Facebook.
"The bandits didn't stop at their regular provocations and fired at our positions using barrel-mounted and automatic grenade launchers," it said.
"One soldier was killed and two were injured," it said.
Kiev and the separatists signed a truce which came into force on September 1.
The army reported two fatalities on September 14, and the rebels said they lost a fighter last weekend on the outskirts of Donetsk.

The conflict, which started after Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014, has claimed over 8,000 lives and displaced 1.5 million.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said last week that he thought the war was still not over but a "real truce" had finally begun.