PRO-RUSSIAN fighters in eastern Ukraine took two government bases in battles around Lugansk today.

They seized ammunition and explosives from a border guard post and took another installation after National Guard forces retreated when they ran out of bullets.

Kiev officials said yesterday that six rebels were killed and three government soldiers injured in 10 hours of fighting overnight at the National Guard base.

Rebels seized a border guard base on the outskirts of Lugansk following a nearly two-day siege.

Elsewhere Ukrainian troops launched an offensive against pro-Russian fighters in Sloviansk.

Two government soldiers were killed and 42 injured in day-long fighting, Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation” spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said.

Astonishingly, Mr Seleznyov put the death toll of the rebels at 300, but the Sloviansk fighters did not confirm these figures.

US President Barack Obama met Ukraine's president-elect Petro Poroshenko in Warsaw yesterday and said the US would send $5 million (£3m) in equipment to Kiev including, for the first time, body armour and night-vision goggles.

The White House said Mr Obama has approved more than $23m (£14m) in security assistance to Ukraine since early March.

The US has already provided rations and money for medical supplies and other non-lethal assistance, including clothing, sleeping bags and generators.

In Kiev, interim President Oleksandr Turchynov, who will hand over to Mr Poroshenko on Saturday, has asked the country’s Security and Defence Council to consider imposing martial law in the east.