Ukrainian forces recapture key rail hub from separatists

Five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 15 wounded over the past 24 hours in fighting in eastern Ukraine where Kiev forces recaptured an important railway hub from pro-Russian rebels, a security official in Kiev said Monday.

Government troops have now all but encircled the rebels' second-largest stronghold of Luhansk and rebels declared a "state of siege" in Donetsk, the largest city they hold.

"Units taking part in the anti-terrorist operation yesterday took the town of Yasynuvata, which is an important hub of the region's railway system," Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Kiev's military operation in the east, told a briefing.

Separatists seized the Yasynuvata railway control center in May as their rebellion spilled over eastern Ukraine. It sits just north of Donetsk nearby a main road leading to Luhansk.

Lysenko also said a group of Ukrainian soldiers and border guards, who have been blocked between the Russian border to the east and pro-Russian rebel position in the west for more than three weeks, crossed into Russia in the early hours Monday.

"Part of the soldiers (group) went into the Russian territory," he said, adding Kiev was now trying to negotiate their return. 

A Russian border security official said more than 400 Ukrainian soldiers crossed into Russia, according to a report from the Interfax news agency. It wasn't immediately clear why the soldiers entered Russia, with both sides giving conflicting accounts.

The Russian official said the soldiers deserted the Kiev government and the Russian side opened a safe corridor, while a Ukrainian military official said the soldiers, without giving a number, were forced into Russian territory by rebel fire after running out of ammunition.

Russia's Defense Ministry couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian military operation in the east, Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky, said troops from the army's 72nd brigade were penned into their position and came under a sustained barrage of fire from separatist forces. Rebel fighters used tanks, mortars, artillery and Grad missile launchers over four hours, Dmitrashkovsky said, and eventually the brigade was forced to divide up into two sections.

Earlier Monday, Interfax reported that Russia's air force began military drills in central and western regions of the country, a move that could spark further fears that Moscow is ready to flex its military muscle in Ukraine.

The drills will start Monday and last through Friday, air force chief Igor Klimov was reported as saying, and will involve more than 100 fighter jets and helicopters.

Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have been battling the Kiev government since April, a conflict that has claimed at least 1,129 civilian casualties, according to a United Nations estimate. Ukraine and Western countries have accused Russia of providing the rebels with equipment and expertise, a claim that the Russian government has repeatedly denied.

Kiev has intensified its campaign against the separatists and made steady gains on the ground since a Malaysian airliner was downed over rebel-held territory on July 17, killing all 298 people on board.

Wire services