The administration of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic promises to prevent Ukrainian border guards and international mediators from controlling the part of the Ukrainian-Russian border now controlled by the militia.

"We control the border and we will not let Ukrainian border guards return there. We don't need any international mediators on the border, either," Andrei Purgin, first deputy prime minister of the DPR, told Interfax.

Otherwise "there will be a blockade and they will simply stifle us," Purgin said. "We can't let that happen," he said.

Ukrainian border guards and customs officers "voluntarily left the international road checkpoints [located on the part of the border controlled by the militia]," he said.

"Some of these former Ukrainian checkpoints are now empty and the others have been disassembled by local residents for scrap metal," Purgin said.