The Ukrainian military has said that two soldiers were killed and two wounded in the eastern part of the country despite a cease-fire that began Friday.

In a statement posted on Facebook on Saturday, the military accused anti-government rebels of firing artillery rounds in both the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The statement did not provide details about the casualties.

The two sides and representatives of Moscow and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agreed on the cease-fire on June 21. It is intended to last until August 31 to allow locals to harvest crops.

Representatives of the Russia-backed rebels on June 24 accused government forces of violating the cease-fire 10 times, adding that information about the purported violations had been sent to the OSCE monitors. 

The conflict in eastern Ukraine has claimed more than 10,000 lives since it began in early 2014, shortly after Moscow annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea.

Some information for this report came from AFP.
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