The Ukrainian Defense Ministry says one Ukrainian soldier was killed and two were wounded in the previous 24 hours as Russia-backed separatists shelled government positions in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
A ministry statement on November 29 said the separatists shelled government positions 27 times since the morning of November 28. It said Ukrainian forces returned fire 11 times.
The Ukrainian military claimed that cease-fire violations by the separatists disrupted plans for Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and UN representatives to visit the towns of Travneve and Hladosove.
It said they had planned to assess the humanitarian situation in the two towns, which are close to the front line in the Donetsk region.
After a Moscow-friendly president was pushed from power by pro-European protests in Kyiv, Russia seized Crimea and fomented separatism in eastern Ukraine, where the ensuing war has killed more than 10,000 people since April 2014.
Fighting persists despite an internationally backed 2015 deal that established a cease-fire and set out steps to resolve the status of separatist-held areas in eastern Ukraine.
