Five Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the last day while combined Russian-separatist forces have a “powerful strike force” of 3,000 soldiers andseveral dozen armored vehicles facing the Azov Sea coastal city of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast, military analyst Dmytro Tymchuk said.

Kremlin-backed

forces have also reinforced their formations in the Svitlodarsk-Artemivsk area

of the region by moving two convoys of infantry and armor consisting of 18

armored personnel carriers, seven tanks and several trucks closer to the front

line, he said on Facebook on May 6.