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East-Ukrainian freedom fighters advance toward Kramatorsk airdrome amid fierce fighting

Fighting between the opposition and the pro-Kiev armed units was underway in Slavyansk

KRAMATORSK, June 03, /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian volunteer guards have advanced on three armored cars from the building of the town hall of the eastern city of Kramatorsk, one of the epicenters of combat clashes in Eastern Ukraine, towards the local airdrome where fighting between volunteers and units of the army has been going on for several hours.

“The armored cars were moving by Parkovaya Street towards the airdrome, in the vicinity of which numerous blasts and incessant firing from large-caliber guns can be heard,” a spokesman for the volunteers said.

In addition to this, reports spoke of combat clashes near the township of Yasnogorka and the administrative boundaries of the city.

“At this moment, we don’t have any data on the victims,” the spokesman said, adding that the current clashes were the most serious ones ever since the outbreak of the armed standoff between the freedom fighters in the east and the forces loyal to the government in Kiev.

In the meantime, fighting between the opposition and the pro-Kiev armed units was underway in Slavyansk, a city 10 km away from Kramatorsk. Monday, artillery shelling disrupted electric power supplies to the township of Semyonovka near Slavyansk.

Earlier reports spoke of three persons killed as a result of an armed clash between the volunteers and the army units near Yasnogorka. The Itar-Tass interlocutor said the clash had occurred in a place near Mount Karachun where the positions of the army and pro-government paramilitaries are located.

“A passenger car was blown up and three persons died inside it,” he said. “The ambulance cars that tried to evacuate the wounded underwent gunfire. They are now in a standstill as the shots pierced their tires.”

However, the volunteers took positions around the ambulance cars in a bid to prevent their seizure by the pro-government forces.

Early information suggested that volunteer freedom-fighters had died in one of the cars.