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                   Eastern Ukraine Fighting Kills 4 Civilians

   by Reuters

   Four civilians were killed and nine wounded by shrapnel during fighting
   on Saturday and Sunday in eastern Ukraine's separatist stronghold city
   of Donetsk, local officials said.

   Pro-Russian rebels and government forces have continued to clash on the
   city's outskirts despite a Sept. 5 cease-fire accord that has generally
   contained violence in other parts of the country's contested east.

   Speaking at a daily security briefing in Kyiv on Sunday, military
   spokesman Andriy Lysenko said 13 Ukrainian servicemen had been wounded
   in the past 24 hours in fighting in the east.

   There was no immediate word on casualties among rebel fighters.

   Fighting overnight

   The sounds of mortar fire and rocket launchers thundered through
   central Donetsk throughout Saturday night as fighting went on several
   kilometers (miles) away.

   Residential areas of Donetsk are often caught in crossfire as they
   right sit next to the city airport, a strategic and symbolic target
   that neither side has been able to take full control of during a
   prolonged stand-off.

   Fighting around the airport picked up toward the end of the week as
   world leaders - including Russian President Vladimir Putin and
   Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko - discussed the crisis during
   talks in Italy.

   They made little progress on ways to stop the violence.

   Kyiv and the West accuse Russia of fanning the armed conflict in
   eastern Ukraine. They have imposed sanctions on Moscow, who they see as
   guilty of providing support, including arms and troop reinforcements,
   to the rebellion.

   Moscow shares the separatists' dislike of Kyiv's pro-Western
   government, but denies playing a role in the armed conflict.

   Meanwhile, Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency has concluded that
   pro-Russian rebels are to blame for the downing of Malaysia Airline
   MH17 in Ukraine in July, Der Spiegel weekly reported on Sunday, the
   first European agency to say so.

   The crash over pro-Russian rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine on
   July 17 killed all 298 passengers and crew and led to a further
   deterioration of ties between the West and Moscow, who are in dispute
   over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis.

   Russian rocket alleged

   Gerhard Schindler, president of the BND, told a secret parliamentary
   committee on security affairs earlier this month that separatists had
   used a Russian Buk missile defense system from a Ukrainian base to fire
   a rocket that exploded directly next to the Malyasia Air plane, Der
   Spiegel reported.

   "It was pro-Russian separatists," the magazine quoted him  as saying.

   The BND concluded the rebels were to blame after a detailed analysis
   based on satellite and other photos, Der Spiegel said.

   No one at the BND was immediately available to comment.

   Kyiv blames the incident on the rebels and accused Moscow of arming
   them, but the rebels and Moscow deny the accusations.

   European governments have so far refrained from openly pointing the
   finger, but shortly after the crash U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
   said there was strong evidence that Moscow-backed separatists had
   downed the plane.

   The Dutch government, which has two investigations underway into the
   downing of the airliner, has yet to say who was responsible. Two thirds
   of the passengers were Dutch.

   A preliminary report by the Dutch Safety Board last month said the
   airliner crashed due to a "large number of high-energy objects" from
   outside the aircraft. It drew no conclusions as to where they came
   from.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/eastern-ukraine-fighting-kills-four-civilians/2488733.html