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President's party leads in final polls before Ukraine vote

Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko's party on Wednesday led the final polls before Sunday's parliamentary vote held as the country faced an unresolved Russian gas dispute and raging hostilities in the east.

With the elections approaching, Kiev said attacks by the pro-Russian separatists quietened down after Poroshenko spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, but bilateral gas negotiations have apparently stalled.

A final opinion poll put the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, a new force organised ahead of the snap vote, on 30 percent, meaning it will likely have to form a coalition with hawkish nationalists who oppose holding talks with Moscow over the conflict in the east, which has killed more than 3,700 people.

The Kiev-based Foundation for Democratic Initiatives had the Radical Party of populist nationalist Oleg Lyashko in second on about 13 percent of the vote, with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's People's Front grabbing nearly 11 percent.

Samopomich -- a new party headed by the mayor of the western Ukranian-speaking city Lviv -- was on 8.5 percent.

The Strong Ukraine group of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych's ally Sergiy Tygypko and the Opposition Bloc of tycoons and politicians who once backed the former president, are also likely to pass the 5.0 percent threshold.

Both enjoyed the strongest support in the southeast, where pro-Russian insurgents are boycotting the polls and will hold their own separatist vote November 2.

Kiev is under pressure to find a solution in its latest gas war with Moscow night temperatures already dipping below zero.

With the elections approaching, heating has been switched on this week in several Ukrainian regions, including in the nearly three-million-strong capital, where it came on Wednesday.

Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine in June, demanding that the new government pay sharply higher prices in advance for new deliveries -- something cash-strapped Kiev is unlikely to do unless it is helped out by Europe, which relies on Russian gas.

But although Moscow and Kiev said earlier this week that they are on the verge of finding a solution, EU-brokered talks faltered Tuesday, and a new meeting was set for October 29 -- three days after the elections.

- Fighting down 'manyfold' -

Kiev said that the intensity of attacks on its positions in the east appeared to have "dropped manyfold" after Poroshenko spoke on the phone with Putin Tuesday.

A day after Human Rights Watch accused Ukraine of using cluster bombs, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that rebels have launched cluster-type shells produced at a Russian factory in 2003, long after Ukraine's military received the last of such ammunition.

In the rebel stronghold of Donetsk heavy shelling hit the Kirov and Kalinin districts southwest and north of the city centre on Tuesday and throughout the night, although Wednesday appeared calmer, AFP correspondents said.

"One civilian was killed due to the fighting, and five more received injuries" on Tuesday, Donetsk city hall said.

Most recent shelling in Donetsk has been in areas surrounding the airport in the north of the city, where Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers -- nicknamed "cyborgs" by Ukrainian media -- have managed to hold positions for many weeks.

In a separatist video released Wednesday, two rebel commanders complained about the Ukrainians holed up at the devastated facility, constructed for the Euro 2012 football championships.

"They wouldn't be able to hold these positions if they were there permanently... they are being rotated every day," a rebel leader nicknamed Motorola said in the video laced with expletives.

In another message distributed by rebel websites, former senior separatist commander Igor Strelkov called on Russia to help the rebels, alleging that Ukraine is preparing to strike Donetsk and to do it swiftly so that Russia does not have time to send in troops.

Strelkov, who commanded the rebels of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic for four months before quitting in mid-August and apparently leaving eastern Ukraine, did not explain where he received the information, which the current rebel leadership has not confirmed.