The unlawful armed groups in the evening of July 4 seized tanks from an open-air museum in a WWII memorial park in Donetsk.
‘The tanks will be put into operational readiness and will enter service with the armed forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic,’ Donbas militants leader Myroslav Rudenko told Interfax.
The seizure of museum tanks has been confirmed by deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Andriy Purhin.
‘f the effort to put them back into operational readiness fails, they will be used as fortification at checkpoints,’ Purhin said.
There were IS-3 and T-34/86 tanks, and several guns and armored vehicles on display in the park.
Eyewitnesses said that armed Donetsk militants broke the locks off and hijacked tanks and guns at an open-air display near the monument to liberators of Donbas. ‘In all, up to 15 pieces of military hardware were hijacked,’ he said.
Earlier, Donetsk Mayor Oleksandr Lukianchenko said that the tanks displayed in the open-air museum were dummies without engines.
