DONETSK, Ukraine – Alexander Borodai, the self-proclaimed prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, claims that six separatist fighters were killed in the early morning hours on May 31 in an attempt to evacuate the bodies of comrades shot dead in a battle for the Donetsk airport on May 26.

“We tried to collect the bodies from the airport territory, but the Ukrainian army fired at the militiamen and an ambulance, killing six. The bodies of those killed are still there,” Interfax-Ukraine reported Borodai as saying.