DONETSK, January 15. /TASS/. Ukrainian Armed Forces have pulled their units out of the airport of the much-troubled eastern city of Donetsk although separate army groupings remain deployed in its vicinity, the press service of the Defence Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said on Wednesday.

“We’re granting an opportunity to soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to leave the airport and the areas adjoining it in order to prevent more unnecessary victims in their ranks,” a spokesman for the ministry said. “No one is going to shoot them in the back.”

Denis Pushilin, the Donetsk Republic’s plenipotentiary representative in the Contact Group for settling the armed civil conflict in eastern Ukraine, said the self-defence forces had opened up a corridor to the Ukrainian military’s withdrawal from the Donetsk airport.

“This doesn’t mean we’re forcing the troops out of the airport in any way because that’s a gesture of good will on our part,” he said.

“We’re doing everything in our power to preserve the lives of the Ukrainian military people since we don’t want any victims among them,” Pushilin said.