Dhaka: Ukraine’s interior ministry said ‘the military is now in full control of the airport in the eastern city of Donetsk’ after a day of bloody clashes.

At least 30 pro-Russia separatists were killed, the insurgents say, after an attempt to take over the airport early on Monday.

New President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko had vowed to tackle ‘terrorists’ in the east ‘within hours, not months’

Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) says it has lost contact with a monitoring team.

The OSCE also said four of its monitors were on a routine mission east of Donetsk. Contact was lost at 6:00pm (local time) on Monday and has not been re-established.

Seven international military observers linked to the OSCE were taken captive in eastern Ukraine in April and held for a week before being released.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a statement on Tuesday: “The airport is under our full control. The enemy suffered heavy losses. We have none.”

He said operations were still continuing. A BBC team there heard sporadic gunfire.

A representative of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic told the BBC that reports of at least 30 dead in Monday's fighting were accurate.

Donetsk mayor Alexander Lukyanchenko said 40 people had been killed in the past day, while another separatist spokesman said 50 fighters had died.

BDST:  2012 HRS, May 27, 2014