DONETSK, October 14. /TASS/. The militia command of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has received information that the helicopter downed by the militia on Thursday, was carrying some instructors from NATO’s member states, the DPR Operations Command Spokesman Eduard Basurin told journalists on Friday.

"There were several military instructors from NATO member states onboard during the combat flight," the Donetsk News Agency quoted Basurin as saying. According to the DPR sources, the helicopter landed on the outskirts of the Krasnogorovka settlement. Sources in the command elaborated that the area was locked down and mobile communication was turned off.

On Thursday, October 13, head of the DPR Alexander Zakharchenko announced that the Ukrainian military, with the support of a combat helicopter, had attempted to carry out an attack on the DPR militia’s positions but the helicopter had been shot down. The previous time the Ukrainian militia used aviation during hostilities was on January 19, 2015, when several Sukhoi Su-25 strike fighters were seen over Donbass.

The Minsk Memorandum dated on Septebmer 19, 2014, bans the use of combat aviation and unmanned aircraft in the ceasefire zone along the line of contact, excluding the unmanned aircraft of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission.