Five Ukrainian soldiers killed ahead of peace talks

KIEV, Dec 19 (AFP): Ukraine's forces on Friday reported the death of five soldiers in the first bloody day of clashes with pro-Russian insurgents in the separatist east in more than week.

Defence spokesman Andriy Lysenko said another seven Ukrainian troops were wounded ahead of long-delayed peace talks the two sides hope to stage with the help of European Union and Russian envoys in the Belarussian capital Minsk by Monday.

Meanwhile:  New US legislation authorising sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis could undermine relations between Moscow and Washington for a long time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying on Friday.

In a phone call with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Lavrov said that the new legislation "threatening new sanctions against Russia could undermine the possibility of normal cooperation between our countries for a long time," said a foreign ministry statement.

President Barack Obama on Thursday signed a law giving him the authority to impose new sanctions on Russia over Ukraine. He said he was not about to change the sanctions regime on Russia, which is experiencing a dire economic crisis, but that his administration would "continue to review and calibrate our sanctions to respond to Russia's actions."

The United States is calling for Russia to pull out of Crimea, Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula that it annexed in March, and to stop aiding pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Russia says it has the historic right to Crimea and that its troops are not in eastern Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin at his end-of-year news conference on Thursday made it clear he was not willing to compromise on Russia's position on Ukraine.