Four people killed as bus trips a mine in Kiev-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine

MOSCOW, March 26. /TASS/. Four people were killed and 19 more were wounded as a bus tripped a mine near the town of Artyomovsk in eastern Ukraine, a spokesman of the Donetsk region interior department said on Thursday.

The incident took place on Wednesday evening in a territory controlled by Kiev troops. The bus en route from Artyomovsk to Gorlovka was bypassing a fixed checkpoint and was moving along an earth road.

Chief of the regional interior department Vyacheslav Abroskin said there were 26 passengers in the bus.

The Donetsk News Agency, an official news agency of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), cited a well-informed source as saying that the mine had been planted on the roadside "to bar DPR militias from getting into the territory controlled by Ukrainian troops." "Kiev troops did not let the bus pass through the checkpoint and the driver decided to bypass it by an earth road," the source said.