Rebel forces in eastern Ukraine are conducting an offensive to capture the government-held airport in Donetsk, officials say.
Pro-Russian rebels have tried several times in recent weeks to take the airport, which lies to the north-west of the city.
The insurgents continued an offensive - begun on Wednesday - on "a broad front", the Ukrainian military says.
An official truce in place in eastern Ukraine has often been violated.
The ceasefire was called on 5 September, but on Wednesday four people were killed by a shell which landed on a school in Donetsk, and six died when a minibus was hit.
A spokesman for what the Ukrainian government calls its anti-terrorist operation said Ukrainian forces repelled four attacks on the airport on Wednesday evening.
A T-64 tank was destroyed and seven rebels were killed, Vladyslav Seleznyov told Kanal 5 TV.
The rebels used tanks, multiple-launch rocket systems, artillery and mortars, he said, resuming their attacks on Thursday morning with small-arms fire.
The airport is strategically important, lying just outside Donetsk, the largest city held by the rebels. Its capture by the separatists would help them to resupply.
Government forces have been using it to shell separatist positions inside the city.
A reporter for Associated Press in Donetsk said on Wednesday there were indications the government may already have lost control of the airport.
Rebel-leader Alexander Zakharchenko, speaking on Thursday, said it was now "95%" under separatist control.
Officials insist the airport is still under government control.
Economy shrinksMore than 3,500 people have been killed in Ukraine in the conflict between pro-Russia separatists and the Kiev government since it began in April.
In a further sign of the economic cost, the World Bank said on Thursday that Ukraine's economy was now likely to contract by 8% this year.
World Bank representative in Ukraine, Qimiao Fan, blamed reduced economic activity in the east. The bank had previously forecast a decline of 5%.
The fighting arose from deep divisions in Ukraine over whether the country should take a more pro-Western or pro-Moscow direction.
Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March and separatists later declared independence in the two eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russia denies Western accusations that it is sending heavy weaponry to the rebels or Russian soldiers to back them. But the Kremlin concedes that "volunteers" have travelled to eastern Ukraine.
Newly appointed Nato Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, called on Wednesday for Russia to change its behaviour and return "to compliance with international law and its obligations."
Meanwhile, a senior official in the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, Boris Litvinov, says a parliamentary commission has been established to investigate what he termed "Kiev's war crimes".
The commission was currently gathering information on "mass burials", he said, and would also look into allegations of "torture".
Human rights groups have highlighted allegations of abuses committed by both sides in the conflict.
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