Gunbattle in eastern Ukraine kills four

SLAVYANSK, Apr 20 (agencies): Three pro-Russian militants and one attacker were killed in a gunbattle near the volatile eastern Ukrainian town of Slavyansk early Sunday, a local leader and a rebel at the scene told journalists.
The separatist leader, Vyatcheslav Ponomarev, who gave the death toll, said the deadly battle broke out at a roadblock in a village east of Slavyansk, which is under the control of pro-Russian militants.
A pro-Russian rebel who said he was at the roadblock at the time told AFP: "Four cars pulled up to our roadblock around 1:00am (1000 GMT Saturday). We wanted to conduct a check, and then they opened fire on us with automatic weapons."
The masked 20-year-old, who gave his name as Vladimir, said there were around 20 attackers, but he was not sure of casualties on their side.
Three of his fellow pro-Russian militants at the barricade were killed and four were wounded, he said.
"Reinforcements quickly arrived at our roadblock and the attackers left."
An AFP photographer saw the bodies of two separatist militants laid out in a truck near the scene of the gunbattle.
One, a man in his 50s with blood on him, was identified by a militant as "my neighbour, Sergei Rudenko".
Meanwhile:  The leader of pro-Russian demonstrators in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk on Sunday appealed to Moscow to send in peacekeeping troops after a deadly shootout breached an Easter truce, the RIA Novosti news agency reported Sunday.
The head of Slavyansk protests, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, said only Russia could defend the city, and appealed to President Vladimir Putin to send peacekeeping forces into the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, the agency reported.
Separatist gunmen maintain a firm grip over a string of towns across Ukraine's industrial east despite an international deal demanding they vacate state buildings they are occupying.
The identity of the attackers in Sunday's firefight was not given.
The Western-backed authorities in Kiev had declared an Easter truce in their so far unsuccessful military operations to try to oust the separatists.
Last Thursday, three pro-Russian separatists were killed by Ukrainian troops when a mob of around 300 people tried to attack a military post in the southeast port city of Mariupol using Molotov cocktails and guns.
An international accord struck Thursday in Geneva between Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the European Union called for "illegal armed groups" in Ukraine to surrender their weapons and end the occupation of public buildings.
So far, that agreement has been ignored by the rebels, despite increasing pressure by Washington on Moscow.
Separatist militiamen near the eastern Ukrainian city of Slaviansk told Reuters that a convoy of four vehicles had approached their checkpoint at around 2:00 a.m. (4 p.m. EDT) and opened fire.
He said the separatists returned fire and killed two of the attackers, who he said were members of Right Sector, a group loosely aligned with the government in Kiev. Slaviansk has been controlled by separatists since last weekend.
A Reuters cameraman at the scene said he saw the bodies of two local fighters, one with what appeared to be gunshot wounds to the head and face. One of the dead was dressed in camouflage fatigues, the other in civilian clothes.
In Kiev, the Interior Ministry said one person had been killed and three injured in an armed clash. It said police were trying to establish more details of what happened.
The deaths were the first in armed clashes in eastern Ukraine since the Geneva accord was signed on Thursday.
A senior mediator with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) set off for eastern Ukraine on Saturday to try to persuade pro-Russian groups to lay down their arms, in line with the Geneva accord.
But the attack near Slaviansk is likely to harden their position that they will not lay down their arms because they believe they are under threat of violent attack from forces loyal to Kiev.
The United States government has said that it will impose further sanctions on Moscow if, by early this week, there is no measurable sign that the pro-Russian separatists are complying with the accord.