DONETSK, August 26. /ITAR-TASS/. The army of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has pushed out Ukrainian troops from four republican settlements, the DPR army headquarters said on Tuesday.

“Overnight to August 26 Ukrainian troops have delivered artillery strikes on two settlements. The enemy kept retreating in the direction of Mariupol [a city in Donetsk region in southeast Ukraine],” the army headquarters said.

Militias said that they killed four Ukrainian national guards and wounded six more in a clash with a Ukrainian national guard unit near the settlement of Pobeda, 55 kilometres southeast of Donetsk.

Units of 51st Ukrainian motor rifle brigade suffered major losses, militia said. “Four self-propelled artillery guns with crews, two howitzers D-30 with fire crews and an armoured tractor truck,” the DPR army headquarters said.

Clashes were in 3 settlements in the direction of Luhansk.

A militia squadron has captured 42 servicemen from 38th and 40th Ukrainian national guard battalions near a Donetsk republican settlement, Ukrainian national guards have lost 54 killed and six all-terrain vehicles near another republican settlement, the republican army headquarters said.

The DPR army staff said that Ukrainian troops had lost up to five tanks and up to three armoured vehicles, ten artillery guns and mortars and 14 vehicles overnight. Meanwhile, militias said that they had destroyed an ammunition depot.