Pravda.Ru has received new information from an eyewitness in the Ukrainian town of Kranoarmeysk. According to him, the Ukrainian troops shell and bomb the towns of Slavyansk and Krasny Liman. As reported, the streets are piled with corpses, snipers operate in the towns, preventing anyone from approaching the wounded. There is no press in the towns, filming videos or taking pictures is impossible.
Militias hope to attract international attention to the brutal atrocities, which the new Ukrainian authorities commit in the south-east of the country.
On June 3, 2014, near Slavyansk, self-defense forces downed a Mi-24 helicopter of the Ukrainian Air Force. The militiamen also managed to destroy a Su-25 fighter jet and four armored vehicles of the National guard, "People's Mayor" of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, told the federal media.
He did not specify the area of the town, where the military hardware was destroyed.
An active phase of the punitive operation started in Slavyansk on June 3 in the morning. The Ukrainian military use tanks, armored personnel carriers, rocket launchers and aircraft, attacking the villages of Semenovka, Cherepkovka, Voevodovka, Krasny Liman and suburbs of Slavyansk.
During the combat action, five militiamen were killed, local media reported; more than 20 people were injured.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry acknowledged the fact of the air raid in Luhansk, in which eight people were killed and 28 others were injured. Officials said that Mi-24 helicopters, under the cover of MiG-29 fighters, fired more than 150 shells in the area of the punitive action in Lugansk. "Mission accomplished successfully," officials with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said.
During the air raid, eight people were killed, including Natalya Arkhipova, the Minister of Health of the People's Republic of Lugansk. The Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Lugansk, Vasily Nikitin, said that Arkhipova was talking to another woman during the time when the air raid started.