Mounting attacks in government-held areas of eastern Ukraine violate a February peace deal with pro-Russian separatists, the EU said Tuesday.

"The renewed escalation of the conflict... as a result of attacks on several government-controlled areas today and in the night of 10 August on Starohnativka, violates the spirit and the letter of the Minsk Agreements," the EU's External Action Service said in a statement, referring to the accord signed in the capital of Belarus.