DHAKA: At least four people were killed Sunday in a gun battle in restive eastern Ukraine, shattering a fragile Easter truce in the crisis-hit former Soviet republic, reports Yahoo News on Sunday.

They mentioned ‘three pro-Russian militants and one attacker were killed in a deadly firefight at a road block close to the separatist-held town of Slavyansk, local leader Vyatcheslav Ponomarev said’.

The identity of the assailants was not known.

Yahoo News said that Kiev`s interim government had pledged a halt to military operations to oust the rebels until the end of the Orthodox Easter holidays on Monday.

A pro-Russian militant at the scene told that roughly twenty attackers in four cars had opened fire with automatic weapons on the rebel post early Sunday. He could not, however, confirm any casualties.

The reported violence came as the United States was pressing Russia to persuade the pro-Kremlin rebels to abide by an international accord calling for them to surrender their weapons and leave occupied public buildings.

BDST: 1515 HRS, APR 20, 2014