Eight Ukrainian soldiers wounded:
Ukraine’s military says eight soldiers have been wounded in fighting with Russia-backed separatists in the east of the country over the past 24 hours.
Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on April 13 that all eight were injured in fighting in the Donetsk region, where 53 "hostile attacks" were registered since the previous day.
Lysenko said there had been 29 incidents of shelling around Mariupol, a strategic city on the shores of the Azov Sea. No injuries were reporting in those incidents.
The news comes amid rising concerns over cease-fire violations in eastern Ukraine, where fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 9,100 since April 2014.
On April 11, the French Foreign Ministry said it was "not acceptable" that observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were being targeted close to the contact line.
"The situation can only be stabilized by the full application of the Minsk agreement," it said, referring to the peace deal backed by Kyiv, its Western allies, and Moscow.
OSCE monitors have been tasked with monitoring the cease-fire, a key element of the Minsk agreement.
A spokesperson for EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini on April 10 condemned the recent incidents targeting OSCE observers as "unacceptable," calling on all sides to "refrain from such actions." (Interfax)
Er, OK.....
Ukraine says Russian agents posed as Poroshenko for fake interview with The New York Times
AFP report about the UN saying one of its staff members has been captured in eastern Ukraine:
The United Nations said Wednesday that one of its staff members had been captured by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine's separatist east.
The UN is carrying out a humanitarian mission in the war-torn republics of Lugansk and Donetsk.
The world body's office in Kiev said it had mobilised all channels to ensure its unnamed staff member's immediate and unconditional release.
"The United Nations is deeply concerned about the fact that one of its staff members is being held captive in Donetsk," the United Nations said in a statement.
It added that is was aware that "the staff is well treated" but provided no details about the person's nationality or when and under what circumstances the capture occurred.
Nearly 9,200 people have died and more than 1.5 million driven from their homes since a pro-Moscow revolt broke out in the former Soviet republic's industrial heartland in April 2014.
A series of periodic truce deals in 2015 have abated some of the violence, which Kiev and its Western allies accuse Moscow of stirring and backing, a charge that Russia denies.
On Sunday, the European Union criticised the "unprecedented level of violence" in eastern Ukraine after international peace monitors came under fire.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said Saturday that several monitors carrying out an observation mission had come under fire 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of the insurgents' de facto capital Donetsk.
In a separate incident Thursday, an OSCE monitor was threatened at gunpoint by a rebel, forcing the patrol to leave a checkpoint they intended to pass, the group said.
