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ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine -- Ukraine's president says six servicemen were killed during the withdrawal from the fiercely contested town of Debaltseve.

The Interfax news agency also cited Petro Poroshenko as telling a meeting of the national security council late Wednesday that more than 100 were injured in the pullout.

Poroshenko earlier in the day announced the withdrawal from the town where Ukrainian forces had been under intense siege from Russia-backed separatist rebels.

He told the security council that, in total, nearly 2,500 servicemen left the town.

Smoke is seen as a tank of the separatist self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic Army starts its engine at a checkpoint on the road from the town of Vuhlehirsk to Debaltseve February 18, 2015.

REUTERS

Associated Press reporters saw several dozen Ukrainian troops retreating with their weapons Wednesday morning from the town in eastern Ukraine, covered in dirt and looking exhausted. Some were driving to the nearby town of Artemivsk in trucks while several others, unshaven and visibly upset, were on foot.

One soldier said they had not been able to get food or water because of the intense rebel shelling. A third spoke of hunkering down in bunkers for hours, unable to even go to the toilet because of the shelling. They smoked cigarettes in the frigid winter air and gratefully accepted plastic cups of tea given to them by locals.

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Ukraine president: 6 killed, 100 hurt in pullout from embattled town