At Least 40 Ukrainian Soldiers Die in Last 24 Hours in East Ukraine - DPR

DONETSK (Sputnik) – At least 40 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and another 50 injured in battles in east Ukraine over the last 24 hours, the deputy commander of the militia of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said Thursday.

“Ukrainian military casualties over the last 24 hours are 40 dead, 50 injured,” Eduard Basurin said.

He added that several pieces of Ukraine's military equipment had also been destroyed, including a tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, three armored personnel carriers, and three mortars.

Sporadic clashes have been reported across eastern Ukraine by both conflicting parties since the ceasefire deal was agreed upon in Belarus last week.

The government in Kiev and eastern militias accuse each other of truce violations, most notably around the town of Debaltsevo.

Roughly 3,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed in the fight for Debaltsevo, a strategic transport hub, Denis Pushilin said earlier on Thursday as quoted by Russkaya Sluzhba news agency.

The peace agreement is broadly observed elsewhere, with militias already withdrawing heavy artillery from the line of the conflict.

On Wednesday, RIA Novosti's correspondent in the southern Donetsk region observed the start of a DPR operation to withdraw heavy weapons, as stipulated by the Minsk accords. This came after the UN Security Council endorsed a Russia-drafted resolution on Tuesday that called on the sides of the conflict to respect their promises.

The armed conflict has killed around 5,600 civilians since the Ukrainian government launched a large-scale military operation in the southeast last April.