KIEV, April 24 - Three Ukrainian troops have been killed in the volatile eastern Ukraine over the past 24 hours, the government reported Sunday.

Oleksander Motuzyanik from the presidential administration told a briefing Sunday that what appears to be the worst death toll in months came after the troops were shelled by Russia-backed separatists' heavy weaponry, the AP reported.

Local officials in the government-controlled town of Maryinka reported an hour and a half of heavy fighting that forced an evacuation of workers repairing a gas main damaged by a previous attack.

Fighting in eastern Ukraine between separatist rebels and government troops has claimed more than 9,100 lives since it erupted two years ago. Both sides have in the past weeks violated their pledges to adhere to a cease-fire, international monitors in the area have said.

Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak warned Wednesday it may take years to settle the ex-Soviet republic's pro-Russian separatist conflict that has killed nearly 9,200 people and plunged Moscow's relations with the West to a post-Cold War low.

Poltorak also accused Russia of keeping several thousand troops in the war-torn eastern region and said his impoverished country was in dire need of Western weapons to help quash the two-year revolt.

"In my opinion, it will take years," Poltorak told a small group of reporters when asked how long it may take to resolve the war, AFP reported.

"As for the need for lethal weapons, of course they are always needed," he added.

"But it is very difficult to tell whether their delivery is possible. I think that, at this stage, it is practically impossible."

The call for arms is justified by "the human loss, the misery and the serious damage done to the economy," said Poltorak, adding that the war had so far cost 9,200 lives and left another 1.5 million people displaced.

The United States and the European Union back Kiev's claims that Russia has been playing an active part in a war that began two months after the February 2014 ouster of Ukraine's Moscow-backed president.

The White House refers to the presence of "combined Russian-separatist forces" in Ukraine's eastern industrial regions of Lugansk and Donetsk.

The European Union has sanctioned Moscow military officials whom it accused of "being involved in supporting the deployment of Russian troops in Ukraine."

But Washington and EU nations have only provided Ukraine with support equipment such as advanced radar technology out of apparent fear that arming its forces may only provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin denies backing the militias and calls Russians caught or spotted in the war zone vacationing or off-duty troops.

Poltorak estimated the number of combined rebel and Russian soldiers fighting government forces at more than 40,000.

"There are slightly over 7,000 Russian troops. They are being rotated all the time." (ap/ez)