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Developments in eastern Ukraine

Hospitals in Kramatorsk evacuate people from upper floors

Most offices shorten their working hours amid fears of possible assaults from the Ukrainian military

© EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY

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Donetsk official confirms keeping OSCE observers captive

KRAMATORSK/SLOVIANSK, May 29. /ITAR-TASS/. Jet fighters of Ukraine’s Air Force were flying over the city of Kramatorsk in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic on Thursday.

“Hospitals got an order to evacuate people from the upper floors,” a self-defense representative told ITAR-TASS on Thursday, adding that the city's maternal clinic was among them.

Besides, most offices shorten their working hours amid fears of possible assaults from the Ukrainian military, he said.

Earlier on Thursday, shelling by Ukraine’s armed forces re-started in the city of Sloviansk that is located about 10 km from Kramatorsk. Helicopters were scouring the sky over the city and paratroopers were reported to have got out of them on the outskirts of the city.

A self-defense militia member told ITAR-TASS that the volunteer guard brought down a helicopter of Ukraine’s Air Force on the southern outskirts of Sloviansk. Moreover, some reports said another helicopter had been shot down, but Stella Khorosheva, the press secretary of the city’s people’s mayor Vyacheslav Ponomarev, refuted them.

Ukraine’s parliament-appointed Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said fourteen Ukrainian servicemen were killed in the downed helicopter, and a general was among the dead.

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