Ukrainian forces have reportedly repelled a rare tank assault by pro-Russian rebels that threatened to usher in a dangerous escalation to the 16-month war.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said about "200 insurgents used tanks to storm" Novolaspa - a village half-way between the separatists' de facto capital Donetsk and the Kiev-held port of Mariupol - in a pre-dawn raid that caught government soldiers off guard.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry called the incident "a dangerous indication of a further escalation to come".
However, the separatists denied advancing their forces and signalled they had always had militia units stationed in Novolaspa.
"The armed forces of Ukraine simply put the village under a heavy shelling attack," a local separatist official told the rebels' main news site.
"Novolaspa remains under the control of the People's Republic of Donetsk."
The Ukrainian government has reported the death of one soldier, while the insurgents accused government forces of killing a civilian in the rebel-held bastion of Gorlivka.
Following the incident, Mr Poroshenko spoke to a number of senior defence personnel to forge a response to "the rise in the number of attacks, particularly those using artillery fire, by the Russian-terrorist forces", his office said.
Ukraine refers to its eastern campaign as an "anti-terrorist operation" designed to quash a revolt devised by Russia and backed by Russian troops -- a charge the Russian government resolutely denies.
The two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk launched their revolt shortly after the February 2014 ousting of Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych and Russia's subsequent seizure of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.
More than 6,800 people have died in clashes since the conflict began.
The conflict has also seen Moscow's relations with the West crash to their lowest point since the cold war.
1.4 million people have been left homeless in a humanitarian crisis that is happening as Ukraine’s economy continues to collapse.
The latest reported clashes came one day after a special monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe saw several of its armoured vehicles torched outside its headquarters in Donetsk.
