At least 19 soldiers have been killed in the latest fighting in east Ukraine, a Kiev defence official said on Wednesday, including five in a rocket attack on regional capital Kramatorsk.
"Nineteen soldiers were killed in the last 24 hours and 78 wounded," military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov told journalists in Kiev, after officials had already announced the death of five troops in Tuesday's attack on Kramatorsk.
On other part of the country, Five people were killed in mortar attacks on the Ukrainian rebel-controlled city of Donetsk early Wednesday as peace talks were due to be held in Minsk.
Pro-Russian rebel representative Ivan Prikhodko told AFP that mortar fire had killed two people, including a bus driver at the bus station.
An employee of the Donetsk metal works plant said separately that two guards had lost their lives in an attack on the smelter.
"One other person died at a bus stop near the plant," plant worker Georgy, who asked that his last name not be used, told AFP.
An elderly woman at a local market said that the shelling hit the city "during rush hour."
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CLICK TO WATCH Shelling at bus station leaves at least 2 dead
"There were lots of people," Svetlana, 56, said. "They were all going to work," she added, noting that she had heard five explosions.
The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine were to meet later Wednesday in the Belarussian capital Minsk in the hope of thrashing out a peace deal to end 10 months of fighting in which at least 5,300 people have died.
Fighting continued to rage in eastern Ukraine Wednesday while crucial peace talks later in the day will be held.
Poroshenko will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin later in peace talks in Minsk, Belarus. France and Germany, who are brokering the talks, have called on the warring parties to refrain from hostilities that could derail the four-way summit.
But EU President Donald Tusk said Wednesday that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will attend an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the war in his country.
Poroshenko will "brief us on the developments in Ukraine", Tusk said. The Ukrainian leader was attending peace talks with the leaders of France, Germany and Russia in the Belarussian capital Minsk on Wednesday.