[2] The standoff began on 12 April, when a group of separatists from the Donbass People's Militia attempted to capture a police station.

[19][20] A representative of the Donetsk People's Republic addressed locals outside the captured police station, but was received negatively by the crowd.

These captured vehicles were then sent to reinforce Donbass People's Militia positions in Sloviansk, which were under heavy siege by government forces.

Insurgents claimed responsibility for the shooting, and said that they had hit the helicopter with a rocket propelled grenade in an interview with Russian media.

[25] Dmitry Tymchuk, a defence expert and director of the Centre of Military and Political Research in Kyiv, told reporters that the Mi-8 helicopter pilot had managed to escape with minor injuries.

[12] After having recaptured many formerly occupied buildings in Sloviansk during a renewed offensive there, Ukrainian forces successfully captured a television transmission tower in Kramatorsk on 2 May.

[citation needed] However, it was reported the next day that the building had been abandoned by government forces, rather than fortified, and that the flag of the Donetsk People's Republic still flew from it even after the insurgents had been evicted.

The ambush was initiated when DPR forces fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an armoured personnel carrier that had been carrying paratroopers, causing the vehicle to explode.

[10] As part of the continuing military operation around Kramatorsk, the army destroyed a separatist hide-out in a forest near the city, and captured three DPR soldiers, on 15 May.

[36] Later on the same day, DPR prime minister Alexander Borodai confirmed that the insurgents had withdrawn from Kramatorsk, and retreated to Donetsk city.

[37] Kramatorsk city administration said that at least fifty people had been killed in the fighting, and that twenty-two remained in the hospital as of 8 July because of injuries incurred during it.