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Four more people killed in war-torn eastern Ukraine

Sunday, 10 January 2016 7:11 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 17 January 2016 4:09 PM ]

Ukrainian servicemen stand next to an automatic mortar launcher in Peski village, in the Donetsk region, November 7, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

Four people have been killed in renewed fighting in Ukraine’s war-torn east, where government forces are fighting pro-Russians.

“Over the last day, two Ukrainian soldiers have been killed,” Ukraine’s military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said on Sunday.

He said one of the two was killed near the village of Zaitseve, some 55 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of the regional capital, Donetsk, and the other was a soldier in the Ukrainian armed forces, who suffered multiple shrapnel wounds in a grenade attack in the same area.

Meanwhile, Eduard Basurin, a spokesman for the pro-Russia forces, announced the death of one of their commanders, saying, “Colonel Yevgeny Kononov was killed at the front.”

According to a news agency operating under the auspices of the pro-Russians, the second fatality on their side came during combat. The pro-Russian was killed by a Ukrainian army sniper in Zaitseve on Saturday evening.

The victims are considered the first in 2016.

On September 1, the warring sides pledged anew to implement a ceasefire agreement that had been reached in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk in February 2015. Kiev and the pro-Russia forces have repeatedly accused each other of delays in implementing as well as violating of the truce.

Over 9,000 people have been killed in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk since conflict broke out there in April 2014.

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