KIEV, June 27 (Xinhua) -- Nine people were injured on Wednesday after a car collided with a passenger minibus in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, the National Police said in a statement.

The accident occurred in Slavyansk city at around 6:45 a.m. local time (0345 GMT), when the car driver failed to give way to the approaching minibus and rammed into it.

According to local media, all the injured are the minibus passengers aged between 30 to 77 years old. They were hospitalized with injuries of varying degrees of severity.

The car driver was detained by police. He faces three years in prison for the violation of road safety rules.

By the end of May this year, a total of 988 people had been killed and 10,146 injured in traffic accidents in Ukraine.