Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk discussed possible Western alliance support for Ukraine’s defensive strength yesterday, while more of its troops were killed in fresh clashes with separatists.

Rasmussen’s visit to Kiev followed a warning by the US-led alliance that Moscow had amassed 20,000 troops near the border and could be planning a ground invasion of Ukraine as it makes progress against the pro-Russian rebels.

The two men discussed the possibility of a proposed Nato trust fund supporting Kiev’s ability in areas including command and control, communications and cyberdefence, the government said in a statement.

Provision of lethal aid to Ukraine by the US-led military alliance did not appear to have been discussed.

Ukrainian government says it is suspending a ceasefire

The Kiev government announced it was suspending a ceasefire with the rebels at the crash site of the Malaysian airliner that was shot down on July 17, after an international mission halted recovery work there for security reasons.

Defence spokesman Andriy Lysenko told journalists that government forces had clashed 19 times with separatists in the Russian-speaking east, often coming under artillery and missile fire from within Russian territory.

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko (left) listens to Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen during their meeting in Kiev yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Regional authorities in Donetsk, the east’s main industrial hub and now the main rebel redoubt, said one person had been killed at a hospital when a shell struck on Thursday after a night of intensive artillery attacks overnight.

Government forces, who say they are gradually tightening a noose around the rebels, denied responsibility. “We have accurate information that the Ukrainian military are not shelling those areas,” said Lysenko.

“In the past 24 hours we have lost seven servicemen, and 19 received wounds,” he said.

The new deaths among government forces suggest that Kiev military losses now total more than 400 since the conflict with the pro-Russian separatists erupted in April. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says the conflict has cost the lives of more than 1,100 people in all, including government forces, rebels and civilians.

Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russia of orchestrating the revolt and arming the pro-Russian rebels, who have declared independent “people’s republics” in the two main industrial regions. Moscow denies involvement.