Twelve Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 18 injured when a bus collided with military trucks in bad weather in the war-torn east, the national guard said Tuesday.
The collision Monday night was due to bad weather and took place during the rotation of professional soldiers and volunteers deployed in eastern Ukraine to fight the pro-Russian rebels who have waged an insurgency against Kiev since April, it said in a statement.
The injured soldiers had been taken to a hospital in the town of Artemivsk in the Donetsk region and were set to be evacuated out of the conflict zone.
More than 4,700 people have died in the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is due to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Germany and France for peace talks in Kazakhstan on January 15.