Ukraine reports first soldier's death from rebel fire in month

Ukraine on Wednesday reported its first military fatality from pro-Russian rebel fire in a month as a fragile new truce in the separatist east faced one of its biggest tests to date.

 The military in Kiev said the rebels shot at positions south of Avdiivka -- a northern suburb of the separatists' self-declared capital Donetsk.

 "The bandits did not stop at their regular provocations and fired at our positions using barrel-mounted and automatic grenade launchers," the Ukrainian military said in a statement.

 "One soldier was killed and two were injured."

 The warring sides signed their latest in a series of ceasefire agreements on September 1.

 The truce helped calm 18 months of clashes that have killed more than 8,000 people and sent Moscow's relations with the West crashing to their lowest point since the Cold War.

 The two sides have also slowly begun withdrawing smaller weapons from a 30-kilometre-wide (19-mile-wide) buffer zone splitting rebel-held regions -- about the size and population of Wales -- from the rest of Ukraine.

 The army reported two fatalities on September 14 under circumstances they did not explain. The rebels said they also lost a fighter last weekend on the outskirts of Donetsk.

 Other army troops have died in mine incidents but not in open confrontation with the insurgents still massed along the 500-kilometre (310-mile) so-called line of contact.