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Ukraine has been fighting Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which belong to the so-called Donbass regointe, since 2014. The uprising began with Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in the same year.
The conflict caught the attention of diplomats on Thursday after Western countries declared at the United Nations that Russia was blocking efforts to end the fighting.
Kiev has repeatedly accused Moscow and the separatists of violating the ceasefire, which led to relative peace in the region in July last year.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry reported that a soldier was killed during a heavy machine gun fire near the village of Novomichailivka, located southwest of the current separatist capital Donetsk.
Another incident killed another soldier by a sniper shot near the village of Zaitsev, also in the Donetsk region, the ministry said on its website.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the front on Thursday with several Western ambassadors and said “there has been a recent increase in separatist attacks.”
According to V. Zelensky, a ceasefire is necessary to save the lives of soldiers and civilians.
The United States and European countries on Thursday accused Russia of blocking any means to end the conflict, which has already cost more than 13,000. human lives.
“We call on Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine, to stop supporting its envoys and other armed groups,” US diplomat Rodney Hunter said in a UN Security Council videoconference.
Russia denies having sent troops and weapons to support the separatists.
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