Three killed, nine wounded in eastern Ukraine amid rising tension

The Ukrainian military and pro-independence rebels on Friday traded accusations of violating a cease-fire in eastern regions after three people were killed and nine others were wounded in fresh clashes.

Government troops had been shelled from the Grad rocket launchers for the first time in a month, said Ukrainian army spokesman Andriy Lysenko, accusing rebels of stepping up their assaults on government troops' positions along the frontline.

"The situation aggravates as tension and armed provocations by insurgents persist along the demarcation line," Lysenko told a news briefing.

Over the past 24 hours, three government soldiers were wounded in rebel attacks, but there were no fatalities, he said.

Meanwhile, the rebel leadership said that tension has heightened after government forces shelled positions held by insurgents near the Shyrokyne Village in the Mariupol area, killing three insurgents and injuring six others.

According to the self-styled defense ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic, government troops violated the truce 33 times in the past 24 hours.

The latest upsurge in fighting in eastern regions came after the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday amended the law on granting a "special status" to the rebel-controlled areas and declared such areas as "temporarily occupied territories."

The rebel leadership strongly criticized the law amendment, saying it violated the Feb. 12 Minsk cease-fire deal aimed at ending the conflict, which has claimed over 6,000 lives since April 2014. Endi