Officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Majors Oleksandr Kandesiuk and Oleksiy Shepeliuk of the 51st brigade, after having been encircled, blew themselves up together with 12 Russian paratroopers, Ukraine's defense ministry has said.

The incident happened on the evening of August 25.

"Eyewitnesses say that they saw how wounded Ukrainian troops were surrounded by 12 Russia paratroopers, the latter threatened them and attempted to take them prisoner. When the enemies, creating a ring, approached to a distance of several meters, the injured Ukrainian officers stood up with their hands up. Notably, they held things in their hands, and a moment later there were several powerful blasts like grenade explosions. Evidently, the officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Majors Kandesiuk and Shepeliuk, didn't want to surrender, and blew themselves up with a number of the enemy," the Defense Ministry's Web site said in a posting on Friday.

The Ukrainian officers had been fighting Russian paratroopers of the 331 landing regiment, garrisoned in the city of Kostroma, the ministry said.