Four Ukrainian soldiers died as a result of the cynical shelling attacks on March 26 by snipers at a demining group of the 143rd Joint Training Center from the Joint Forces Operation staff in the area of Shumy settlement in Donbas, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Colonel-General Ruslan Khomchak said.

"The demining group of Lieutenant Colonel Koval, consisting of Sergeant Major Brusko, senior soldier Hyshchuk, together with head of the brigade's engineering service, senior soldier Barnych, was inspecting the area for the presence of mines and their demining from POM-2 antipersonnel mines, which were remotely installed by the Russian occupation forces the day before," said Khomchak, speaking at an extraordinary meeting of the Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday.

According to him, while performing assignments, senior sergeant Barnych was fatally wounded by a bullet as a result of sniper fire, and group commander Lieutenant Colonel Koval, assisting him and carrying out the evacuation, received a gunshot wound incompatible with life as a result of sniper fire.

He noted that as a result of the shelling attack, Sergeant Major Brusko received severe bullet wounds, senior soldier Hyschuk received moderate wounds.

"Senior sergeant Abramovych and senior soldier Haichenko, who arrived to support a group of servicemen, came under sniper fire and received fatal bullet wounds," the commander-in-chief said.

He stressed that the command has repeatedly taken measures to cease fire from the enemy by a certain mechanism of interaction between the joint coordination and control center (JCCC) and the OSCE, and decided to open fire in response.

"After opening fire in response, the enemy stopped shelling, which made it possible to provide assistance to the wounded and evacuate the dead," Khomchak said.

He said that the special cynicism of the actions of the units of the Russian occupation forces is that sniper fire was fired at the backs of the military personnel of the Joint Forces from a critical infrastructure facility - a water pumping station through which water is supplied both to the temporarily occupied territory and to the territory controlled by the government of Ukraine.

"The enemy tried to provoke our troops to fire in response at the pumping station to cause a humanitarian catastrophe in the area of the towns of Toretsk, Horlivka, Pivdenne," Khomchak said.