Army General Staff refutes reports 15 Ukrainian soldiers killed in Donbas in one day

"The information about 15 deaths on November 7 is untrue: we had one serviceman injured in that period, he was hurt in the explosion of a pull-action mine. We did not suffer other casualties although 23 shelling incidents were observed," General Staff spokesman Vladyslav Selezniov told Interfax-Ukraine on Monday. One army serviceman was killed and another eight suffered injuries on November 14. Sappers were sent to plant mines between roadblocks, the militant "drone saw them and they were attacked by use of mines," Selezniov said. Three servicemen were killed in a landmine explosion near Zolote on November 15, he said. Five attacks of militants were observed in the period from noon of November 15 to this morning; there were no casualties, the General Staff spokesman said. At the same time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said in a statement published on the Ukrainian Defense Ministry website on Monday that reports alleging the deaths of 15 soldiers in shelling incidents near Donetsk on November 7 were untrue and "aimed at discrediting ATO forces." "We underline that the situation in the ATO zone was relatively calm on November 7, 2015. Attacks on ATO forces were random and conducted by use of small arms and grenade launchers. One serviceman suffered injuries on November 7 [in the detonation of an explosive device]," the statement said. The Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff once again asked the Ukrainian media to check information with official sources and "to not disseminate untrue reports." The General Staff also said that nine servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were injured, including one lethally, on November 14 in a mortar attack on servicemen accomplishing a mission near the Butovka mine. "The injured fatherland defendants are being treated in the Dnipropetrovsk clinical center," the report said.