STAROGNATIVKA: Ukraine on Wednesday reported intense battles with pro-Russian insurgents near the last major government stronghold in the former Soviet country’s separatist east.

A military spokesman in Kiev said clashes north of the Sea of Azov port of Mariupol had killed one soldier and injured three.

The rebels reported the death of a civilian in a different part of the Russian-speaking war zone.

The latest battles are focused on the control of a highway linking Mariupol with the separatists’ de facto capital Donetsk.

Most of the road is currently overseen by government forces. Its access could potentially help the insurgents step up their stop-start campaign to capture Mariupol.

The industrial port of nearly half a million exports most of the east’s factory output and provides a land bridge between rebel territories and the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2015

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