ROSTOV-ON-DON, June 24. /ITAR-TASS/. The reserve groups of police departments in some districts of Russia’s Rostov Region have been alerted as intensive shootouts were heard in the neighboring Ukrainian territories, the Interior Ministry’s regional office has said.

Earlier, the spokesman for the Rostov regional office of the federal security service FSB, Vasily Malayev, told ITAR-TASS there were clashes between people’s militia and Ukrainian troops and National Guard in the area of the Dolzhansky checkpoint on Ukraine’s border with the Rostov Region. The incident occurred at 6.40 pm Moscow time. Mortar fire from Ukraine damaged buildings, engineering facilities and supply links of the Russian border checkpoint Novoshakhtinsk. A Russian customs officer was injured, a spokesman for Russia’s Southern Customs Department said.