Nine people were killed and 35 more wounded in fresh fighting in eastern Ukraine as marathon peace talks dragged on in Minsk, officials said on Thursday.

"As a result of shelling and clashes two Ukrainian soldiers were killed, 21 more were wounded," Vladyslav Seleznyov, spokesman for Ukraine's General Staff, told reporters.

"I couldn't care less whether we're under the Ukrainians or the separatists. I just want peace," Irina, a war-weary doctor in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine, said as shelling boomed close to her hospital.

Irina, who declined to give her surname, said she had backed the pro-Western government that came to power after the ouster of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych a year ago.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Tuesday a ceasefire along the front line in the east of his country appeared to be holding after Kiev declared a "day of silence" in its war with pro-Russian separatists.

"Today, one and a half hour ago, we declared a new ceasefire," Poroshenko said at a public lecture in Singapore.

Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists agreed Tuesday to a truce at Donetsk airport -- ground zero in a war that has killed more than 4,000 people -- as well as across a wider swathe of rebel-held territory.

"Today, we reached an agreement to halt fire at 6:00 pm Moscow time (1500 GMT) around Donetsk airport," the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic co-leader Andrei Purgin told reporters.

Elections organized and won by separatists in eastern Ukraine over the weekend were "unfortunate and counterproductive," U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday.

A senior separatist from eastern Ukraine said on Monday he believed there was a chance a peace plan for eastern Ukraine could succeed.

"The agreements will be carried out, but with great difficulty," Andrei Purgin, the deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, told Agence France-Presse.

A fresh round of talks on how to find a lasting solution to five months of brutal fighting in eastern Ukraine began on Friday in the Belarussian capital Minsk.

The so-called Contact Group comprising Ukraine's former president Leonid Kuchma, Russian envoy Mikhail Zurabov, four pro-Moscow separatist leaders and OSCE representatives were seen arriving for the crucial meeting at a Minsk hotel, according to an AFP correspondent present.

In flashpoint cities of eastern Ukraine, uneasy residents voiced doubt Saturday that the ceasefire deal would bring lasting peace after five months of devastating conflict that has ruined the lives of so many.

"Nothing has actually changed," 38-year-old Vladyslav Lobsin told Agence France-Presse in the strategic port city of Mariupol, where residents had been bracing for a rebel onslaught until the guns were ordered silent.

Sweden's embassy in Minsk has received a threat against Swedish nationals in Belarus, following the recent expulsion of the Swedish ambassador and diplomats, the foreign ministry said Sunday.

"The Swedish embassy has received a threat aimed at Swedes in general in Belarus," the embassy wrote on its webpage.

Belarus has executed both men convicted of a Minsk metro bombing that killed 15 people in the nation's worst attack since its post-Soviet independence, state television reported on Sunday.

The report came a day after the sister of one of the two men, Vladislav Kovalyov, who had pleaded not guilty to acting as an accomplice, had told AFP that authorities had informed her of her brother's execution by gunshot.