One Ukrainian serviceman was killed, three others were injured over the past 24 hours in Donbas, said Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksandr Motuznyak.
"The enemy occasionally uses heavy weapons, mortars and 122-millimeter artillery. Enemy snipe [fire] also intensified again along the frontline," he said.
Pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk oblast, for their part, claim that Ukraine has violated the cease-fire regime 102 times over the past 24 hours, while separatists in Luhansk oblast say that Ukrainians have shelled them three times.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin has prolonged his vacation, prosecutor Vladyslav Kutsenko told Ukrayinska Pravda.
President Poroshenko published an address to the Ukrainian people on February 16, asking Shokin to step down. Several Ukrainian media outlets citing anonymous sources in the Prosecutor General's Office said that Shokin had resigned.
According to Ukrainian law, however, a person cannot be fired while on vacation. It is unclear, if Shokin resigned before leaving for vacation.
Another party quits ruling coalition:
A leader of Ukraine's Samopomich (Self-Reliance) party says it has decided to quit the ruling coalition, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to find new allies or risk the collapse of his government.
Oleh Berezyuk made the announcement on February 18, a day after the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party walked out of the pro-Western coalition.
The loss of the Samopomich's 26 lawmakers leaves the alliance of Yatsenyuk's party and the president's faction without a majority in parliament.
Yatsenyuk survived a no-confidence vote on February 16, hours after President Petro Poroshenko called on him to resign "in order to restore trust in the government."
Yatsenyuk said on February 17 that it was essential to reshuffle the ruling coalition, adding that he was in discussions with political groups, including the populist Radical Party. (Reuters, dpa)