Ukraine is pleading for cash to rebuild an economy battered by a year of war, but drawing investors to a country where shells are still booming is a struggle.

Kiev is frustrated that Western officials are ordering it to speed up economic reforms but refusing to send peacekeepers to stabilize a conflict it blames on Russia.

A forest fire broke out Tuesday near the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, scene of the world's worst civil nuclear disaster in 1986, but posed no danger to the site, officials said.

"The fire is at a distance of 15 to 20 kilometers (9 to 12 miles) from Chernobyl," Maya Rudenko, a spokeswoman for the plant, told AFP by telephone, adding there was "no problem" there.

A Ukrainian soldier was killed and 14 others injured as shelling intensified in eastern parts of the country where government forces are fighting pro-Russian rebels, the army said Tuesday.

"One Ukrainian soldier was killed and 14 injured due to military activity" over the past 24 hours, military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told a news conference.

Jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko has resumed her hunger strike and is withering away, her lawyer said on Monday, adding that authorities planned to transfer her to a Russian civilian hospital.

Lawyer Nikolai Polozov said that Savchenko, who had already lasted for more than 80 days without food before halting her hunger strike last month, has again been refusing food since last week.

Ten pro-Kremlin bikers on a controversial ride to Berlin to celebrate Soviet victory in World War II were on Monday denied entry into Poland at the Belarusian border, Polish border guards said. 

The bikers include members of the Night Wolves, a fiercely nationalist club closely linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

European leaders on Monday resisted Ukraine's demands for peacekeepers to stabilize its war-torn east, as monitors reported a surge in shelling near a strategic government-held city.

Top European Union officials at a summit with the former Soviet state did however agree to boost humanitarian support as Kiev fights separatists in the east whom its Western allies accuse Russia of backing.

Berlin knew the risks of flying over war-torn east Ukraine before Flight MH17 was shot out of the sky last year but did not inform German airlines, local media reported on Sunday.

Investigators are still trying to determine who was responsible for downing the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 in July last year, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he had no regrets over Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and that it was righting a historical injustice.

"I think we did the right thing and I don't regret a thing," Putin said of his decision to take back the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine, interviewed in a state television documentary.

A Ukrainian soldier was killed and seven others injured as bombardments intensified in the east of the country where government forces are fighting pro-Russian rebels, the army said Sunday.

It was the latest reported fatality in a year-long conflict which has killed more than 6,000 people.

Russia is failing to fully implement a ceasefire deal agreed in eastern Ukraine despite its hopes of seeing European sanctions eased, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.

The top U.S. diplomat said he challenged his Russian counterpart in a phone call earlier this week about Russian convoys and equipment in eastern Ukraine "because it is clear at this point in time" that the Minsk ceasefire deal "has not been lived up to sufficiently."