Violence in Ukraine reaches lowest level since beginning of conflict

KIEV, Ukraine, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Ukraine's defense minister says violence in eastern parts of the country has reached its lowest level since the beginning of the conflict, according to reports.

"We record from two to four shootings per day, which is the lowest number of attacks over the past year and a half," Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak told reporters Tuesday.

The announcement comes one week into a fresh cease-fire deal between the Ukrainian military and pro-Russian separatists who seized large swaths of eastern Ukraine's Lugansk and Donetsk regions following Russia's annexation of Crimea last year.

The Sept. 1 agreement was meant to reinforce the Minsk cease-fire deal, agreed to in February, which called for an end to fighting, an exchange of prisoners and a pull-back of heavy weaponry from the front lines.

Both sides have traded significant portions of prisoners, but fighting escalated over the summer as each side blamed the other for initiating exchanges of shell fire and other attacks.

A United Nations report tallied at least 105 Ukrainian civilians killed and 308 injured between May 16 and Aug. 15, 2015, compared to 60 killed and 102 injured between Feb. 16 and May 15, 2015.

"The shelling of residential areas on both sides of the contact line has led to a disturbing increase in the number of civilian casualties over the past three months," the report quoted U.N. Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein as saying. "More needs to be done to protect civilians and put a complete stop to the hostilities, in accordance with the February cease-fire agreement."

Nearly 8,000 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since the conflict broke out in April 2014, according to the United Nations.