Ukraine brings in big guns

Ukraine said it is deploying heavy weaponry and armoured vehicles to strengthen its border against Russian intervention and halt the influx of fighters after skirmishes with separatists claimed another dozen lives.

The authorities in Kiev are also moving personnel and equipment to the western border with Transdniestria, the breakaway Moldovan region in which hundreds of Russian troops are stationed, Ukraine's State Border Service chief Mykola Lytvyn said yesterday.

"A large number of terrorists" were "liquidated" in the easternmost Luhansk region, parliamentary speaker Oleksandr Turchynov told lawmakers in Kiev. The operation around the city of Slaviansk in the eastern region of Donestk is "in an active offensive phase" with "active exchanges of fire", he said.

Rebels in Slaviansk, a fiercely separatist stronghold, said they had brought down a Su-25 attack aircraft and a helicopter, but this was denied by the Ukrainian authorities.

The fighting followed a day-long firefight on Monday in Luhansk, a town further east on the border with Russia, after an attack by separatists on a camp of Ukrainian border guards.

At least two people were killed in the city centre of Luhansk - which, like Slaviansk, is under separatist control - by a blast that rebels said came from a Ukrainian air strike but which the Ukrainians said was caused by the misfiring of a heat-seeking missile by the rebels.

The reports of fresh fighting coincided with Ukraine announcing that 59 servicemen had been killed in clashes with rebels since hostilities broke out in April.

"In the Donetsk and Luhansk regions 181 people have been killed and 293 wounded by terrorist activity, including 59 servicemen," general prosecutor Oleh Makhnitsky said.

US President Barack Obama yesterday unveiled a $1-billion (R10.67-billion) US security plan for eastern Europe aimed at allaying fears of the Kremlin trying to reclaim formerly Soviet-controlled territory.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that he supports the creation of a "humanitarian corridor" to allow Russian aid to reach Ukraine .