Militants try to provoke armed standoff with ATO forces on Friday

REUTERS

"At about 16:00 Kyiv time, the militants fired from a grenade launcher and small arms at our outpost near the village of Zaitseve on Artemivsk direction," reads the report.

Also, close to 16:30, the mercenaries shelled the positions of the Ukrainian troops near Zaitseve using a grenade launcher from the temporarily occupied territory, still failing to draw the ATO forces into an armed standoff.

"Ten grenades fell 100 meters short of our positions," the press center reported.