KIEV, July 21. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian troops have captured three towns in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, a spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said on Monday.

According to the spokesman, the Ukrainian army took the towns of Dzerzhinsk, Rubezhnoye and Soledar. “In Dzerzhinsk, they hoisted the Ukrainian flag over the building of the local administration,” he said, adding that now the Ukrainian army was “spotting and eliminating remainders” of local militia “in liberated towns.”

The spokesman also said that the Ukrainian army had detained a great number of local self-defense fighters and seized weapons and munitions.

The Ukrainian military “have taken control over a strategic settlement of Georgiyevka” near Luhansk” and the settlement of Peski in the Donetsk region, he added.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said earlier on Monday that combat operations in the range of 40 km (25 miles) around the crash site of a Malaysian Boeing 777 airliner must be stopped.

Pro-Kiev troops and local militias in the southeastern Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions are involved in fierce clashes as the Ukrainian armed forces are conducting a military operation to regain control over the breakaway regions, which on May 11 proclaimed their independence at local referendums.

During the military operation, Kiev has used armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation. Many buildings have been destroyed and tens of thousands of people have had to flee Ukraine’s embattled south-east.