Ukraine says two soldiers injured in continued fighting in the east

The Ukrainian military says its forces have suffered two casualties as a result of "enemy fire" along the frontlines in eastern Ukraine.

The Joint Forces Operation announced that the two service members were wounded in action. Both are in hospital, it said, with one of the soldiers in a serious but stable condition, report CNN.

It said that, as of 11 a.m. local time (4 a.m ET), Russian-backed separatists had carried out 33 violations of the ceasefire, including 22 incidents in which they fired weapons prohibited by the Minsk Agreements.

The war in eastern Ukraine started in 2014 and has claimed the lives of more than 14,000 people. Intense fighting in 2014 and 2015 left portions of eastern Luhansk and Donetsk in the hands of Russian-backed separatists. 

Those separatist-controlled areas in Ukraine's Donbas region, became known as the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). The Ukrainian government in Kyiv asserts the two regions are in effect Russian-occupied. The self-declared republics are not recognized by any government, including Russia. The Ukrainian government refuses to talk directly with either separatist republic. 

The Minsk II agreement of 2015 led to a shaky ceasefire agreement, and the conflict settled into static warfare along the Line of Contact that separates the Ukrainian government and separatist-controlled areas. The Minsk Agreements (named after the capital of Belarus where they were concluded) ban heavy weapons near the Line of Contact.