DONETSK, August 08. /ITAR-TASS/. Self-defense fighters in east Ukraine have seized a large amount of combat materiel from the Ukrainian army grouping encircled in the “southern cauldron,” the local news agency Novorossiya reported on Thursday, citing the militia.

“Good trophies have been seized in the ‘southern cauldron.’ Exact numbers are not yet available but sources give the figure of about 67 pieces of the armor,” the news agency said in a statement.

The east Ukraine militias now have “lots of tanks, 18 Grad multiple launch rocket systems, armed personnel carriers, howitzers, portable air defense missile systems, infantry fighting vehicles and airborne combat vehicles. Most of the materiel has been put into operation while the other part has been sent for repairs,” the Novorossiya news agency reported.

ITAR-TASS has not yet received the confirmation of this information from other sources.

Pro-Kiev troops and local militias in the eastern 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 east.