You're reading: Police says three killed in Slovyansk shootout

  Three activists of the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic" were killed and three others wounded in a skirmish at a checkpoint near Sloviansk outside the village of Bylbasivka in the Donetsk region early on Sunday. Casualties on the assailants' side are not known, the regional police department reported.

“Unidentified men fired shots at the checkpoint from a car at 2 a.m. on Sunday. The fire was returned. Tree activists were killed, among them two local residents, born in 1957 and 1972. Three others were wounded. They received medial attention and refused hospitalization,” the police department said.

The more than ten assailants collected those killed and wounded, and fled in two cars towards Kharkiv. The attackers’ casualties have yet to be established, it said.

Rossiya 24 television earlier reported that five people were killed, among them three residents of Sloviansk and two assailants, and another was wounded in an attack on a checkpoint in Sloviansk.