KIEV, May 13. /ITAR-TASS/. Nine servicemen of Ukrainian law enforcement bodies have been killed since force operations have been conducted in the east of Ukraine, Rada-appointed defense minister Mikhail Koval told a briefing on Tuesday.

"We have lost five pilots, two paratroopers, an officer and a soldier of a territorial defense battalion," Koval said.

Earlier on Tuesday Rada-appointed acting president of Ukraine Oleksander Turchynov declared that the force operations in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions would continue. He also suggested that the organizers of the referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which took place May 11, should be criminally liable.

Previously, the representative said the Ukrainian authorities were conducting a full-scale sweep operation in Sloviansk, using aircraft and landing troops against civilians. Ten civilians and self-defense activists were killed and 25 people wounded as a result of the punitive operation carried out by Ukrainian servicemen near Sloviansk (Donetsk region). 

The death toll from the bloodshed in the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odessa has risen to 48. Rioting in Odessa began on May 2 when football fans arriving from Kharkov, eastern Ukraine, as well as activists from the radical Right Sector movement and members of the so-called Maidan self-defence forces from Kiev staged a march along city streets.