Three Ukrainian soldiers died in fresh clashes in the country's rebel east, the military said on Sunday.

"Three officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were killed as a result of shelling near the Avdiivka base", some 12 kilometres (about 7 miles) north from the rebel stronghold Donetsk, the army said.

Kiev had earlier reported that Kremlin-backed separatists used Grad rocket launchers to shell residential areas, which left 17 houses in ruins.

Military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said two civilians died in Zaytseve, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of Donetsk.

"It was a man and a woman who were on the street when the enemy shelled residential areas", Motuzyanyk told journalists.

Nearly 10,000 people have been killed since the start of a pro-Russian insurgency in 2014 which Kiev and the West accuse Moscow of masterminding.

That conflict, and Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, have pushed ties between Moscow and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War.