KIEV: Three Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 10 wounded in the country’s war-torn east, as clashes tick back up, the army said on Sunday.

Over the past 24 hours pro-Russian separatists fired at Ukrainian positions using large calibre artillery, grenade launchers and drones, the military said in a statement.

The military said two were killed on Saturday, along with 10 wounded, while a third died on Sunday.

Most of the attacks took place in the eastern Donetsk region, the statement said.

“There are no victims among the local population,” the Ukrainian military said in an earlier statement.

The Ukrainian army is locked in a conflict with breakaway fighters in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions that erupted after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Kiev says at least 53 Ukrainian troops have been killed since the start of the year, compared with a total of 50 the previous year.

The separatists say they have lost more than 30 soldiers since the start of the year.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2021