DHAKA: A fierce battle erupted on Monday for control of the main airport in rebel-held eastern Ukraine, just hours after future president Petro Poroshenko vowed he would not let the country become another Somalia.

Ukrainian fighter jets and combat helicopters struck at separatist gunmen who seized the airport in the main city of Donetsk, triggering heavy gunbattles.

It was the most forceful action by the Kiev government in its battle to crush a bloody pro-Moscow insurgency that has raged in the industrial east since early April, threatening to tear apart the former Soviet state.

Plumes of thick black smoke rose from the airport complex as the sound of explosions and heavy machinegun fire rang out, media correspondents at the scene said, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 2040 HRS, MAY 26, 2014