SLOVIANSK, May 25 /ITAR-TASS/. An Italian journalist and his interpreter were killed in a mortar attack near the city of Sloviansk in Eastern Ukraine. A French stringer was wounded, a source at the Sloviansk militia headquarters told ITAR-TASS.

The journalists worked in the village of Andreyevka near Sloviansk.

The French stringer, William Roguelon, was taken to hospital with a shell fragment wound in his leg. He left the hospital himself after the doctors had bandaged his wound.Any further details are so far unknown.

Earlier on Saturday, representatives of Sloviansk’s self-defense forces opened a return fire at Ukrainian army positions after fierce armed clashes near the village of Semyonovka in Sloviansk's outskirts. Motor fire as well as submachine and submachine gun rounds could be heard in Sloviansk the whole day.