KIEV, July 16. /ITAR-TASS/. A total of 11 Ukrainian servicemen have been killed over the past 24 hours in the area of Kiev’s military operation in eastern Ukraine, National Security and Defense Council spokesman Andrey Lysenko said Wednesday.

“The information on a great number of our soldiers killed in yesterday’s battles is not true,” Lysenko said.

He said 45 Ukrainian soldiers have been captured by militiamen. The Council had no data on captured civilians.

According to Lysenko, 14 cases have been registered over the past day when Ukrainian army roadblocks were shelled.

Pro-Kiev troops and local militias in the southeastern Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions are involved in fierce clashes as the Ukrainian armed forces are conducting a military operation to regain control over the breakaway regions, which on May 11 proclaimed their independence at local referendums.

During the military operation, conducted since mid-April, Kiev has used armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation. According to Ukraine’s Health Ministry, 478 civilians have been killed and 1,392 wounded in it. Many buildings have been destroyed and tens of thousands of people have had to flee Ukraine’s war-torn Southeast.