MOSCOW, March 18. /TASS/. Three Ukrainian servicemen were killed and another four wounded in an explosion near Avdeyevka north of Donetsk after an attempt to arm a drone with grenades, spokesman for the Donetsk People’s Republic Defense Ministry Eduard Basurin said on Friday.
"Reconnaissance has established that Ukrainian ‘volunteers’ delivered an experimental unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to the units stationed near the settlement of Avdeyevka," the spokesman said.
"The personnel of the battalion tried to make an attack drone out of it jointly with volunteers to fire at populated areas of the Donetsk People’s Republic from the air. The work was carried out in a tent. As they were attaching grenades to the drone, an explosion occurred and the tent went ablaze, as a result of which three Ukrainian servicemen died and four others were wounded, the Donetsk People’s Republic quoted Basurin as saying.
Other equipment, including two US-made Motorola radio stations, was burnt down together with the drone, the spokesman said.
The DPR Defense Ministry earlier reported on many occasions that the Ukrainian army was using drones. In particular, the DPR’s reconnaissance registered the intensified activity of the enemy’s drones in the area near Mariupol.
The DPR Defense Ministry demonstrated on March 10 the fragments of a Ukrainian drone shot down over the village of Nikolayevka in the south of the Donetsk People’s Republic.