At Least 30 Dead in Ukraine Airport Battle; Government Claims Control

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Ukrainian military jet aircraft Su-25 fires decoy flares to protect itself after launching rockets near Donetsk airport on Sunday.

Image: MASHABLE, EVGENY FELDMAN

By Jim Roberts2014-05-27 11:03:17 UTC

Ukraine's government said Tuesday it had retaken control of the airport in Donetsk after a bloody battle with pro-Russian separatists that left at last 30 insurgent fighters dead.

Mashable correspondent Christopher J. Miller is in the Donetsk morgue as of this moment and reports seeing "seriously mangled" bodies of insurgent fighters. He said the head of the morgue gave a death toll of 33 fighters and 2 civilians.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a statement: "The airport is under our full control. The enemy suffered heavy losses. We have none."

Despite the government's claim of control, fighting continued into the early afternoon near the airport, suggesting that the government was still struggling to gain control of the area, according to the New York Times.

The battle over the airport began only hours after Ukraine elected a new president, Petro Poroshenko. Pro-Russian fighters took over the terminal before dawn on Monday, and government troops launched an all out assault with fighter jets and paratroopers later in the afternoon.

The ferocity of the government's counterattack conformed with the words of President-elect Poroshenko, who in his first post-election press conference said: “I am not going to hold any dialogues with the criminals. You don’t talk to terrorists. The anti-terrorist operation will not and cannot last for months, it will last just for hours.”

In Moscow, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a "real war" was under way in the Russian-speaking Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and called on Poroshenko to halt military operations there.

Topics: Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine , US & World, World