Luhansk militia report overnight clash with Ukraine security forces
LUHANSK. May 22 (Interfax) - Militiamen in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region claim that Ukrainian security forces provoked an armed clash near the village of Luhanska last night after they refused to show their ID papers to a volunteer patrol.
"Our mobile groups were alerted about the arrival of unknown armed persons as reinforcement for the Ukrainian border guards stationed in the village of Luhanska. They [militiamen] went there to verify this information. Having arrived in the village, our militiamen ordered these people to produce their IDs and leave the Luhansk region as soon as possible. However, they refused to obey the orders and opened fire. Our militiamen fired back," the leader of the "People's Front of the Luhansk region", Alexiy Chmylenko, told Interfax.
None of the militiamen were injured in the incident, Chmylenko said. Several Ukrainian soldiers sustained injuries, he added.
Chmylenko also said that a convoy of Ukrainian security forces' armored hardware was heading toward the town of Lysychansk.
"I do not rule out that the adversary will try to retake control of as much of the Luhansk region as possible in the run-up to the elections. "Methods of force" will be used for these purposes. It will be done in order to be able to hold the voting process at least at several polling stations," he said.
Interfax has so far been unable to obtain official confirmation of this report.
It was reported on Wednesday that the "united army of southeastern Ukraine" had fortified its positions in Luhansk, expecting the arrival of a large convoy of the Ukrainian National Guard there.