The main airport in Ukraine's eastern city of Donetsk has been rocked by an explosion and heavy shooting after armed rebels seized the facility, an AFP correspondent at the scene says.
Thick black smoke was seen rising from the airport complex on Monday as the sound of heavy machinegun fire rang out and fighter jets could be heard overhead.
Scores of armed separatists had earlier seized control of the modern airport, which was revamped for the 2012 European football championship, halting all flights out of the rebellion hit city.
The strategic transport hub had been evacuated and sealed off after gunmen claiming to be from the self-declared "Donetsk People's Republic" showed up overnight, demanding that Ukrainian troops guarding the airport perimeter be withdrawn.
The raid was launched in the hours after billionaire Petro Poroshenko claimed victory in a presidential election on Sunday that the pro-Russian rebels have dismissed as illegitimate.
"At 3.00 in the morning, a group of armed men came. There was no shooting," airport spokesman Dmytro Kosinov said.
The last scheduled aeroplane allowed to leave was the 7.00am (1400 AEST) flight to Kiev.
"We do not know when we will be up working again," Kosinov said.
An AFP journalist saw three military trucks with scores of well-armed men in camouflage, some wearing pro-Russian ribbons and others with Cossack hats and beards, driving towards the airport through a traffic police checkpoint a few hundred metres from the main terminal.
Airport officials stopped media and passengers wanting to travel from getting close enough to the main entrance to see the airport buildings, but an AFP journalist saw people walking around on the roof of the modern terminal from another location on the edge of the airport territory.
It was too far away to see if the people were armed.
