The fighting between Ukrainian government forces and the Russian-separatist forces in eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas escalated on July 30.
Four Ukrainian soldiers were wounded, Ukrainian military reported.
According to the military spokesman Andriy Lysenko, Russian-separatist militants shelled Ukrainian positions 39 times in one day.
The most intensive shelling took place near Avdiyivka, a city in Donetsk Oblast.
Read more: Residents of Avdiyivka stay put under fire
According to Lysenko, the shelling doubled comparing to the previous days.
Fighting takes place at the frontline in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts daily despite the fact that the ceasefire is present de jure.
The sides signed a ceasefire deal in Minsk in February 2015, but it was never fully implemented.
According to Lysenko, Avdiyivka’s industrial zone remains an area of the most intensive fighting.
“It accounts for one-third of all ceasefire violations in Donetsk sector,” he said on July 31.
The Russia-backed separatist militants have been attacking the Ukrainian forces with mortars and grenade launchers during the days and launching artillery shelling at nights.
According to the Ukrainian military, the separatists use the 120 mm and 152 mm weapons which according to the Minsk agreement should have been withdrawn from the frontline and stored in special sealed locations under control of monitors of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
In Luhansk Oblast, the militants violated the ceasefire only after the arrival of dusk. Most attacks from mortars, weapons of armored personnel carriers, grenade launchers and machine guns were directed at the positions of the Ukrainian troops near the city ofPopasna. The attack lasted an hour and a half.
In the Mariupol sector, the Russia-backed militants were most active in Mariyinka. Two groups attacked the positions of Ukrainian troops under the cover of mortar and grenade launcher fire, according to Lysenko.
The Russia-backed militants have accused the Ukrainian forces of violating the ceasefire 817 times within the past 24 hours, according to the separatist media outlet Donetsk news agency.
The international monitors of the Special Monitoring Mission of the OSCE noted 35 percent more ceasefire violations over this week compared to the last week, according to Alexander Hug, First Deputy Chief Monitor of the mission.
“Another indication of the deterioration was the increased use of artillery, almost double of what we have seen the previous week,” Hug said at the press conference on July 29 in Kyiv.
Hug said that some 90 percent of recorded artillery explosions occurred around separatist-controlled city of Horlivka 39 kilometers east of Donetsk.
The OSCE links the escalation to the refusal of the sides to remove their weapons from the proposed security lines.
The organisation has also complained that their monitors have been facing obstructions on both the government-controlled and the occupied territories.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Savchuk can be reached at [email protected].
