KIEV, Ukraine
At least 85 people, including five Ukrainian soldiers and 80 separatists have been killed in clashes in eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours, Ukrainian army sources said Thursday.
"The clashes also wounded 38 Ukrainian servicemen and more than 100 separatists," Andriy Lysenko, a Ukrainian presidential administration spokesman for anti-terrorism operations, said, adding that most casualties occurred in the town of Maryinka.
Lysenko said that the Ukrainian army also destroyed more than 10 separatist vehicles.
Figures provided by the Ukrainian army could not be independently verified.
The fighting in eastern Ukraine has intensified despite the cease-fire agreement between separatists and Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asked the Ukrainian army Thursday to be prepared for a renewal of the offensive in Donbas as well as for a full-scale invasion along the joint border between Ukraine and Russia.
“We must be ready for this,” Poroshenko told the Ukrainian Parliament Thursday, reminding that there were allegedly more than 9,000 Russian soldiers on Ukrainian soil and much more near the Russian border with Ukraine.
About the current strength of Ukrainian forces on the ground, Poroshenko said that the number of Ukrainian soldiers had surged to 250,000, and the number of Ukrainian soldiers participating in the operations in Eastern Ukraine was 50,000.
The president said that he was not happy with the work of the Ukrainian government, parliament, and not even with his work.
He said he was not happy, “because we couldn’t satisfy our people with our work…Therefore, we must work twice as much”. He urged the government to implement the much needed reforms.
About Ukraine’s dependence on Russian gas, he said: “Previously, Ukraine was depended around 90 percent on the Russian gas, whereas in the first quarter of 2015 the dependence fell to 37 percent.”
“We gave an end to the Gazprom's monopoly and blackmails,” he added.
At least 6,417 people have been killed, and 15,962 others wounded in the conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists since April 2014, according to the U.N.'s latest report issued on Monday.
The Feb. 12 Minsk cease-fire agreement calls for the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from combat areas, and of all foreign-armed formations; release of all hostages and unlawfully detained persons as well as political reforms and decentralization in the eastern Ukrainian regions.
However, the agreement has failed to be implemented fully, with daily reports of breaches and clashes, and both parties blaming each other for violating the accord.
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