One slain man in a black uniform was a Security Service of Ukraine officer, while the injured included Ukrainian soldiers who drove there in armored personal carriers, according to eyewitnesses and officials.
“I came here to report to our guys on the barricades in case the Ukrainian army approaches,” Volodymyr Kolochenko, an eyewitness, and local city council member from Communist Party, who supports the pro-Russian insurgents, told the Kyiv Post. “They approached this car, from which four men in blue and green camouflage uniforms ran out and started shooting soldiers."
Kyiv Post journalists saw a car with windows smashed by the shootings and many cartridges lying around.
Three Ukrainian armored personal carriers were parked nearby.
Aleksandr, the Ukrainian military commander who didn’t give his last name, confirmed the shootouts and said the people responsible escaped to the forest. When asked if the Ukrainian soldiers shot back, he just said “no comment.” He confirmed there were wounded, but said “with our people it’s all fine.”
Kolochenko said his car was shot at four times as well. He provided the Kyiv Post with the video which showed that one Ukrainian soldier was lying on the ground shot and one man in black uniform was slumped motionless near the car with blood flowing from his body.
A local man who refused to be identified said that the slain man was an SBU officer. “One killed and two soldiers were wounded,” he said.
Arsen Avakov, Ukraine’s top cop, said in a report that one SBU officer was killed and five people injured in the shootout near Slaviansk.
Locals say that a man who came with a Poltava Oblast license plate traced to the private security firm Yavir were the instigators.
The Kyiv Post initially saw a motionless body inside of that car. But the man stood up, saying that he was a local taxi drier who was knocked out by people who drove the car. “They just dragged me into car,” he said. A pistol was lying near him in the car.
“They wanted to provoke the (pro-Russian) soldiers to attack people in Sloviansk,” Kolochenko said.
(From) Al Jazzera live blog
Dmirty Tymchuk, director of Military-Political Research Centre in Ukraine, says on his Facebook page:
"There are about 600 people of the main forces of extremists in Slavyansk. Besides special forces of the Russian Federation, about 500 members of different movements of Donbass are also active in the city, they arrived there and split into 2 big groups. A group of 200 people is being controlled by representatives of one of the oligarchs.The second group of about 300 people is run by representatives of one of the mafia bosses. The whole action is being coordinated by Russian Intelligence."
So-called "local activists of Eastern Ukraine"
Swedish FM Carl Bildt today posted a photo (above) of a group of these, as Russian FM Lavrov claims "local activists of Eastern Ukraine" held responsable for today's attack on Slavyansk approaches. Each of them may be seen wearing same army uniforms and identical automatic weapons. pic.twitter.com/DSY4SQrBIr
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